The legacy of climategate

But when evaluating climategate, a variety of responses is seen, ranging from the apologetic to the highly critical. It is argued that reluctance to critically examine the climategate affair, including suspect practices of scientists, has to do with the nature of the debate which is highly politicized. A call is made for more reﬂection on this case which should not be closed off because of political expediency.

Bishop Hill points to two very interesting articles written by Reiner Grundmann.

An enduring debate surrounding climategate is whether the scientists involved committed malpractice. Grudmann addresses this issue by “assessing the e-mail affair in the light of two normative analyses of science, one proposed by Robert Merton (and developed further by some of his followers), the second by a recent suggestion to use the concept of honest brokering in science policy interactions.”

Excerpts from the Conclusion:

Do the practices highlighted by the e-mails exemplify any of the four norms suggested by Merton? (universalism, communism, disinterest, ogranized skepticism).

The exposed climate scientists did not adhere to the norm of universalism as they gave preferential treatment to close allies. They did not share their data as would be required under the norm of communism. They did not act in a disinterested way as the whole e-mail communication reveals. On the contrary, they acted strategically, showing self-interest and zeal. Above all, they wanted to communicate the political message of their research (that the Northern Hemisphere has never been as warm in the past millennium as it is at present) and boost their own careers. Finally, they did not foster organized skepticism but tried to stifle skeptical voices. It is interesting that the Climategate investigations describe this as ‘‘bunker mentality’’ but do not see unethical behavior.

However, sociologists close to Merton have suggested that scientists do not conform to the Ethos when engaging in scientific controversies. Here, different norms apply, above all the cognitive norm of adhering to technical standards in data gathering and analysis. Still, the hockey stick controversy and the dealing with the ‘‘divergence problem’’ could be seen as an instance of violating a cognitive norm. But only skeptical scientists and bloggers seem to put forward such a case.

This leads to the conclusion that the Mertonian ethos of science is not operating in practice, and that it has been irrelevant for defining proper behavior in the CRU e-mail scandal. This may be due to the fact that today there are many more scientific debates and controversies, and that they are increasingly politicized.

The second normative framework considered here, Pielke Jr.’s Honest Broker, recognizes the politicized nature of scientific controversies. Advocacy can be carried out very effectively on an individual basis, honest brokering much less so. But Pielke is aware of the institutional aspect of honest brokering. Above all, his point about stealth advocacy is well taken and should inform our endeavors to devise institutions for effective science policy interactions that are trustworthy.

Merton is ambivalent when it comes to personal virtues but surely puts emphasis on institutional design which matters when assessing scientific practice. He emphasizes the institutional integrity and the policing of the science community. From this perspective, it would seem a moot question to discuss the question whether there was individual failure exposed by Climategate. High-profile reviews have focused on the procedural and institutional aspects, leaving aside the issue of research ethos. In so doing, they concur with Merton in emphasizing institutional procedures above personal virtues. We have to establish processes that are open, transparent, and robust enough to avoid conflicts of interest to arise in the first place. And this should be the major focus for an institutional redesign of the scientific advisory process on climate change, post CRU scandal. The IPCC procedures were not robust enough to prevent these abuses, as the IAC review found. Likewise, the peer review process proved to be weak in many instances. It needs to be complemented by communication tools that provide more transparency. Science policy makers would be well advised to study the hockey stick controversy as an exemplar case in order to learn crucial lessons to make science policy interactions more robust in the future.

There are examples where powerful people in the review process have not abused their position. But it would be problematic to rely on human virtues alone. Honest brokering can only be achieved on a routine basis through institutions, not through individuals. This does not deny the fact that sometimes exceptional individuals will play a decisive role in politicized science controversies. However, it would be naive to take such interventions for granted. One should rather design institutions of knowledge provision and advisory systems that do not fall prey to such vagaries.

Moving from the individual level to the collective level brings the risk of group think, nepotism, and deference to authority. To forestall these, one needs to include viewpoints that go against the grain of the views of established elites of expertise and policy making. As we have seen in the case of the e-mail scandal, we cannot rely on individuals’ research ethos but need institutions that foster such aims.

JC comment: I found this paper to be quite insightful in terms of separating misconduct from ethos and institutions vs individuals. The entire article is well worth reading.

The legacy of climategate: revitalizing or undermining climate science and policy?

The second paper discusses reactions and interpretations to climategate published by social scientists. The opening section entitled ‘Climategate and the risks of political commitments’ gives a critical review of the affair. The paper examines previous essays on the topic written by Nerlich, Wynne, Jasanoff, Beck, van der Sluijs, Ryghaug and Skjolsvold, and Ravetz.

In my excerpts, I focus Grundmann’s assessments and the statements that I find to be particularly insightful:

In fact, what the emails reveal are problematic practices of leading climate researchers acting as zealous gatekeepers in a scientific and political project. Attempts have been made to exclude inconvenient research from the peer review process. Some commentators see this as normal practice in science, others as somewhat problematic stage managing, still others as manipulation in order to defend a ‘dogma’, or ‘orthodoxy’ (of anthropogenic global warming). Such a reading would suggest a parallel to religious practices which then is used in a polemical way against the standard bearers of (climate) science. Official orthodoxy is beyond criticism in both cases. To the extent that such orthodoxy was used to stifle debate, this has arguably had the opposite effect and produced a new generation of skeptics.While the first generation of climate skeptics (such as Pat Michaels) was very much linked to the fossil fuel industry whose interest they defended, the second generation skeptics (such as Steve McIntyre) lacks such an agenda.

However, Wynne has an excellent point when observing the unproductive constellation provoked by the ‘climate wars’. He writes that while skeptics deny the authority of the IPCC, social scientists and policy analysts may notice the fragile consensus provided by the IPCC and feel uneasy as they follow its lead into a technocratic policy trajectory. What is needed is a fresh and outspoken critical evaluation of the IPCC and its problems but Wynne stops short of such a conclusion.

Beck and van der Sluijs et al. take a more radical approach when advocating institutional reform of the IPCC. For these authors climategate is a wake up call to scrutinize the IPCC’s relation to policy making especially the linear model and the consensus approach at its heart. Beck sees major flaws in the design of the IPCC, flaws linked to the linear model of policy making. This has led to a politicization of climate science and a depoliticization of politics, giving rise to ‘proxy debates’ about scientific evidence. In such debates all interested parties cherry pick scientific evidence to advance their case. [Beck] explains that these proxy debates enable interested actors to smuggle their political preferences into the scientific debate. The result is that disagreements appear as disputes over scientific evidence while in reality they are rooted in deeper differences about values and policy making. Thus the notion that the IPCC can deliver the ‘proof’ of global warming and compel politics to act has gained momentum. This approach entails a specific risk in that such proxy debates ‘make science vulnerable to a backlash of public criticism.’ Her way out of this impasse is to call for opening up debates .

[van der Sluijs et al.] take aim at the consensus model of the IPCC, which they see as a fundamental weakness as it hindered a full-blown political climate debate: ‘Paradoxically, the consensus approach was originally chosen in the hope that it would have depoliticized the science, but instead it created vulnerabilities in the science policy interface (such as the tendency of overselling certainty) that can easily be exploited’.

Re Ravetz’s famous (to the climate blogosphere anyways) WUWT post:

Ravetz is no Luddite and does not rejoice from the sudden discrediting of climate science. What sets him apart from his skeptical critics is that he does not see a conspiracy but ‘blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)’. His main concern is how to re-establish public trust for science. To this end, he suggests to implement mechanisms of extended peer review, partly echoing the message from others above: ‘Detailed technical work is a task for experts, but quality-control on even that work can be done by those with much broader expertise’

Grundmann’s closing statements:

If social scientists want to avoid the dilemma of either denying the authority of IPCC science or faithfully following its conventional wisdom down the corresponding technocratic policy, they had better examine climategate more deeply and ponder the lessons. We need much more reflection on this case which should not be closed off because of political expediency. The debate has only just begun.

JC comments: I’ve read about half of the papers referred to by Grundmann. I found this synthesis, and particularly Grundmann’s evaluations, to be quite insightful. Ravetz statement pretty much summarizes the CRU emails IMO: ‘blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)’. The problem occurred when the institutions (e.g. IPCC, journals) weren’t sufficiently robust to handle this, largely associated with the fatal flaw in the IPCC process: consensus seeking. And I certainly agree with Grundmann’s final point:

We need much more reflection on this case which should not be closed off because of political expediency. The debate has only just begun.

Related

669 responses to “The legacy of climategate”

Looking back based on what we know now it is amazing how cocksure Mann and his sycophants were about global warming. If it wasn’t knowing and purposeful fraud from the beginning — like the Piltdown Man Hoax — then the magnitude of the departure from discipline and principle is an incredible embarrassment for science.

Here are two contradicting quotes that demonstrate the duplicity of the “skeptics” concerning their denial of global warming and their attempts to, when convenient, hide that denial:

“The world is warming. It has been for centuries. Rather than saying anything about anthropogenic global warming, all the BEST dataset does is confirms that. How that’s gotten twisted into some supposed “victory” for the AGW crowd escapes me.” – Willis Eschenbach (October 22nd 2011)

“Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.” – Anthony Watts (June 2nd 2010)

We’ve seen a similar trope with the cooling oceans. We first have ignorance of the cooling by the alarmists and then corruption of the facts by the alarmists to obscure existence of the cooling and then we are treated to alarmists trying to find a reason why the cooling is not significant or worse, alarmists’ explanations that the heat is hiding deep in the oceans just waiting to arise and destroy the Earth.

I put into quotes what you would have had to read into that in order to make your two examples disagree with each other.
If you prefer, I’ll rephrase:
How do you twist, ” it cannot be credibly asserted [from the tampered-with data] there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.” into him (Watts) asserting that no warming occurred in the 20th century?

Lolwot, as someone who has followed the arguments between the warmists and the skeptics, I find that the more I know the less I believe the warmists. Can we trust that it is warming? I think probably yes, but the “adjustments” made by Hansen and others makes you less than sure. As for BEST, while they confirm that 2/3 of the stations showed warming, 1/3 showed cooling. The aha you’ve come up with seeing two different skeptics say different, but not contradictory things seems to overblown on your part. But I guess that’s to be expected by a devote warmists.

I’ve got to hand it to Lolwot. He still has hopes that rational argument might prevail. I must say that I feel a bit guilty that I’ve left him to it recently. I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that if anyone thinks the science is all wrong on AGW, Evolution, Relativity, or whatever, there is little that be done to convince them otherwise.

Lolwot is pointing out that you guys don’t have a coherent alternative theory. Many contrarian positions are contradictory. Like global warming isn’t happening, or if it is it is just from natural causes, or if it is anthropogenic then it much too small to be significant, or if isn’t then the warming is a good thing.

It certainly is relevant. It shows, quite well, how poorly many critics of skeptics understand what they’re criticizing. Even better, it shows how certain they are in their ignorance!

Lolwot is pointing out that you guys don’t have a coherent alternative theory. Many contrarian positions are contradictory.

So? Why would disbelief require consensus? What do I care about why the guy next to me doesn’t believe global warming will be a catastrophe? All I care about is the fact “consensus” supporters have done a terrible job of making their case, and thus, I don’t have any particular reason to worry.

Two people in a jury might think different people were responsible for a murder but both agree the accused isn’t guilty. It’s perfectly natural. The only people deserving mockery for this sort of thing are the people who think it shows some sort of hypocrisy.

But by all means, keep mocking people who don’t agree with you. It won’t convince anyone, but you’ll have fun doing it!

The IPCC 2001 TAR contained a graph of the Hockey stick and the HadCRUT3 data with annotation of 140 years and 1000 years.
Both the Hockey Stick graph and the 2001 version of the HadCRUT3 data showed the well defined global cooling from 1942 to 1975.
Another graph from the IPCC 2001 TAR showed four datasets all clearly defining the cooling from 1942 to 1975.
The 2007 IPCC 4AR shows the same HadCRUT3 dataset but somehow this version has managed to “hide the decline” in temperature giving the false indication that current global warming started with the increase in CO2 emissions from post war industrial activity.
When data is manually changed in this way it is outright fraud and people who support this fraud are just as bad as those who perpetrate it

A simpler explanation is that “skeptics” are not a monolithic group, but have differing ideas about what they are seeing in the GW/AGW/CAGW debate. And even then, their ideas may evolve with new evidence.

lolwot, your taking both quotes out of context. If you looked at the time line of events, Anthony Watts said that in June of 2010… before there was a BEST (or only just around the time BEST was conceived). He had good reason to be skeptical at that time since it was before BEST and he had studied temperature data collection sites and found lots of issues. In the intervening time, BEST happened… with the help of Watts. After BEST, Willis expressed that BEST resulted in something he already apparently knew (October of 2011). So…there was skepticism about the way temperatures data was collected, a study was performed to elucidate the affects of the ‘poor data collection sites’ on the land temperature record (BEST) and finally those who participated in BEST accepted what they learned. That’s what skeptical people do to close their skepticism.

You also falsely think all ‘skeptics’ must have the exact same opinion since you quoted two separate people, Watts and Willis. What makes you think they agree on all skeptical issues wrt climate? There is a range of skeptical thought, not one. You took two quotes by two different people that bookended the BEST study which largely closed an open issue and tried to pass it off as duplicity…. FAIL!

“If you looked at the time line of events, Anthony Watts said that in June of 2010… before there was a BEST (or only just around the time BEST was conceived).”

As I explained, that’s the point. Watts didn’t accept the warming in the instrumental record. He’d published a report alongside Joseph D’Aleo published by SPPI making that very point. That’s where this quote comes from: “”Instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.””

But after BEST skeptics were forced to accept the warming in the instrumental record.

But no admission they had been wrong. Unless I missed a big news day, there was no “we were wrong” admission. Instead skeptics tried to frame the idea that they had ever questioned the warming in the instrumental record as an alarmist strawman. Apparently they’d always accepted the instrumental record showed warming!

“But after BEST skeptics were forced to accept the warming in the instrumental record.”

Skeptics were not forced to accept it at all. Look, the other half of my comment focus’s on the fact that there is no one skeptic view on AGW… there are a range of views. Some skeptics accept BEST, others still don’t. This in no way is an example of duplicity. Duplicity is not contradiction. To be duplicity, one would have to mislead someone deliberately.. to be deceptive. In your example, there is no attempt to be deceptive. You merely have two differing opinions from different people at two very different points in time… no deceptive behavior. No one needs to apologize for anything. Being skeptical… investigating a problem…. getting a better answer… moving on… it’s what skeptical people do. Not accepting a better answer or sticking to a flawed opinion in the face of new and better knowledge is not skepticism.

I know there are a range of views, but the views Watts and D’Aleo made in the SPPI publication “Policy Driven Deception” were very prominent views. It wasn’t just 3 obscure commenter’s on somewhere vague like bishophill.

The view was also shockingly bad. The instrumental surface record was fine even before BEST, in fact I fail to see why BEST should have changed a thing. Yet when confronted with BEST they don’t admit the error but instead wheel out the “reasonable” skeptics to claim they never disagreed with the records.

Lolrot, as long as you believe that WUWT is the “public front” of skeptics, whatever that nonsense phrase means to you, so long will you not comprehend the debate. I never read WUWT, unless directed to it. Very funny.

Really? Did you perchance forget that, eg RealClimate, spent a lot of time explaining that Antarctic was expected to cool according to the models, then when Steig et al appeared, the tune changed to “we always said it should be warming”, then when the math was questioned, that changed to “antarctic is cold – yeah we knrw that”(conflating cold and cooling). Now none of that explains or excuses the apparent contradiction that you quote (although personally, I don’t see any contradiction), however it does show that if you intend to label such things as “non-scientific”, then you had better be prepared to labal the RC crowd with the same tag, or be called a hypocrit.

“Of course you’ll be able to provide actual quotes that document a contradiction like I have…right?”

A quick search @ RC on “antarctic” reveals the following, which is at least as contradictory as your quotes IMO. This in less than 5 minutes…

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/antarctic-cooling-global-warming/ says:
“It is important to recognize that the widely-cited “Antarctic cooling” appears, from the limited data available, to be restricted only to the last two decades, and that averaged over the last 40 years, there has been a slight warming (e.g. Bertler et al. 2004. At present, it is not possible to say what the long term change over the entire last century or more has been.”

lolwot, if your are actually interested, here is another interesting realclimate discussion, “I thought I asked about this in a different thread, but I couldn’t find my question.
Are the results of this study inconsistent with the UAH TLT or TMT trends?

[Response: Good question. You can (now) read the paper for yourself and see. The answer is partly that our data covers the pre-satellite era, so you can’t tell. But for 1979-on, we don’t get the same results as MSU. Our answer to that is not to trust MSU in these regions; I understand that Christy disagrees on that. This too will be an interesting debate – William]”

A 0.7C per decade warming trend in the Antarctic troposphere some might think, “unbelievable”. But since Radiosone data from the most hostile temperature environment on Earth indicates something that somewhat indicates what some of the model seem to indicate, “don’t trust the MSU …”

Also, ozone is not just an Antarctic thing. Changes in the ozone in the tropics can cause surface cooling. Douglass and Christy noted that the UAH MSU data seemed to indicate that the sensitivity appeared to be lower, ~0.7 C degrees. That seems to have created a circling of the climate wagons according to the climategate emails. Susan Solomon noted in one, that the models may not be properly “tuned” for ozone changes in the tropics and sub tropics.

Kevin Trenberth recently was proud to announce that the UW crew had found an issue with the UAH tropics that if corrected, would get UAH to better agree with surface temperatures. If Solomon is right, that would mean that not trusting UAH may be the same as not trusting the physics. Kinda comical in my opinion :)

“If Solomon is right, that would mean that not trusting UAH may be the same as not trusting the physics. Kinda comical in my opinion :)”

Yes those UAH buffoons Spencer, Christy and company neglected the UHI effect when it comes to satellites. The urban in this case was the satellite itself, which emitted radiation that it’s sensor could not compensate for. Hilarious bit of “Hiding the incline”.

Web, when RSS is compared UAH, there are several places where the sets don’t match perfectly. So the “buffoons” may be hiding an incline at one point but then they would be hiding a decline at another.

I was kinda looking at what was up with my typical non standard approach.

Web, calibrating the satellite seems to be a little tricky. That was kinda quick, I should ponder it for a while, but that swooping curve is not exactly what I would have expected. It is kinda like the dominate trend is inconsistent calibration of the satellites?

Here are two contradicting quotes that demonstrate the duplicity of the “skeptics” concerning their denial of global warming and their attempts to, when convenient, hide that denial:

I notice the two quotes are from different people (and even if they were from the same person, it’d only say something about that person not a broad group of people). It is possible for two people to hold different opinions (of which, I might add, don’t appear particularly contradictory, much as Peter137 states below), else there would be no disagreement on global warming and its impact in the first place. Would we claim that the human race is being “duplicitous” on global warming because there is such disagreement? It doesn’t make sense to me.

lolwot or whoever you are. Since you bring up the BEST data analysis of temperatures I have to say a few things about it. First, there was no systematic analysis and their main effort went into collating three commonly used temperature databases into one monster database they posted on the Berkeley web site. What annoyed me was that they totally ignored the existence of satellite temperature measurements that started in December 1978. That is in conformity with Hansen of GISS and other databases that follow his lead. You probably don’t know this but there is a major difference between between satellite and ground-based temperature measurements in the eighties and nineties. In ground-based records that period shows a steady warming called the late twentieth century warming. In satellite records there is no temperature rise, only an alternation of warm El Nino and cool La Nina periods for twenty years. And the warming, when it comes, is a step warming initiated by the super El Nino of 1998. In four years it lifts global temperature by a third of a degree Celsius and then stops. That was about 2002 and there has been no warming since. What makes this difference between satellite and ground-based records vitally important is that in 1988 Hansen announced that anthropogenic global warming had arrived. That is ten years before the start of actual warming according to satellite records. The warming that is recorded by ground-based temperature measurements started after a thirty year period of no warming from the fifties to the seventies when people were talking about a coming ice age. Hansen was then part of the Pioneer Venus project but in 1978 he quit and joined GISS because “The composition of the atmosphere of our home planet was changing before our eyes.” His first task at GISS was to devise a new method of recording global temperature change. And lo and behold, as soon as it was implemented temperature started to rise and ten years later he was able to say that global warming had arrived. I compared the satellite and ground-based curves at high resolution and found that the El Nino peaks were present in both. The difference was that the La Ninas which appear as valleys between the peaks were all made shallow, about half their depth in satellite records, and this gives ground-based curves an upward slope. Neither GISS nor NOAA nor the Met Office have used the satellite temperature curves at any time during the thirty two years they have existed. BEST had enough funding to make a study of this but they preferred to ignore it and spent it all on what was basically a clerical job. You take it from there. To learn more, get my “What Warming?” from Amazon.

The only duplicity here is from lolwot. He knows full well that skeptics have a variety of opinions, many though accepting that AGW is probably not zero. All though are opposed to the rampant fraud on which the CAGW argument rests, on which lolwot is so silent on.

That’s odd, because one of the definition’s of “fraud” is to intentionally mislead.

You can mislead while not intending to do so. Classic example would be someone who is confident in a particular viewpoint and readily interprets everything in terms of that viewpoint. Psychologically, anything which contradicts the viewpoint is ignored or misconstrued. It’s a profound sort of observer bias.

Now suppose they communicate and attempt to persuade someone else of their viewpoint. If the listener doesn’t think critically about what the speaker says and just accepts it without question, then you have a classic case of misleading, but not by intent.

Reblogged this on evilincandescentbulb and commented:
After skeptics exposed AGW as a hoax the scare tactics surrounding the energy power-grab in America amount to nothing more than superstition-based Leftist politics and marketing liberal utopianism to those who demand something for nothing. That is what is behind the desire to rebrand global warming hysteria cum climate change hysteria cum disastrous global climate disruption hysteria to its final resting place: climate weirding.

Early on in the making of the hoax past declines like the Little Ice Age (LIA) — as well as previous warming periods like the Medieval Warm Period (WMP) — were simply hidden. Soon they were rediscoverd. Then came all of the attempts to marginalize the scope of these major Earthly events as being simply regional instead of ubiquitous. There never was, of course, any good reason for concealing the actual facts about the LIA and the WMP or any of the other previous cooling and warming periods except that these were inconvenient facts for the global warming alarmists to deal with.

Since they still cannot abandon GCMs, global warming alarmists must cling to a belief that predicted global warming is still happening but it is hiding. Hence, the Earth is still warming globally but it cannot be detected because the heat that is building up is hidden somewhere deep in the oceans. And, that is what Trenbreth and others are telling us.

Here’s the problem for warmists. You have a tough time raising the alarm if the current warming is not unprecedented. Mann’s construction was manna from heaven for the political warmists. It gave them their chicken little moment.

If you don’t believe in the ‘C’ bit then why are you so passionate about it?
If AGW isn’t going to have any great effect then why do you waste so much of your time on blogs arguing the toss with people whose opinions shouldn’t matter?

AGW is a hoax because 31 years of OLR measurement show zero detecable enhancement of the greenhouse effect from the 57.1% increase in global CO2 emissions over the past three decades.
Nine years of this OLR data was available to the IPCC when they formed in 1988
18 years of this OLR data was available in 1997 when the Kyoto Protocol was initiated
28 years of this data was available in 2007 when the IPCC issued the 2007 4AR
2007 also marked the fifth year since the Earth began to cool in 2002 and the Bali declaration made in December 2007 stated :

2007 Bali Climate Declaration by Scientists

This consensus document was prepared under the auspices of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

——————————————————————————–

The 2007 IPCC report, compiled by several hundred climate scientists, has unequivocally concluded that our climate is warming rapidly, and that we are now at least 90% certain that this is mostly due to human activities.

lolwot, the emails prove that the scientists were complaining that the papers were rubbish, “in their opinion”. Opinions are like you know what, everyone has them. The most telling thing about the emails was the “good ol’ scientist club”. Being naive enough to believe that a scientist is correct or unbiased because he/she is a “scientist” is ridiculous.

Climategate shows no such thing. What it shows is that those whose other malpractices – including attempts to circumvent peer-review – were exposed (Jones, Mann et al), expressed their rage that views different to their own were being aired.

“It is clear from the quoted e-mails that the CRU scientists and their colleagues believed that there was a failure of the peer review process at Climate Research that allowed a scientifically flawed paper to be published. Subsequent events have demonstrated that their views were justified; as shown by the publication of Mann et al.’s (2003) scientific rebuttal. It is not inappropriate or uncommon for scientists to challenge the validity of each ’others work. It is well within the norms of the scientific community to write and publish comments or responses and otherwise challenge published journal articles if one can demonstrate that there are scientific insufficiencies. Such challenges are indeed essential to the progress of science. The critical issue is that such challenges should be focused on scientific and factual grounds. The scientists reacted reasonably by publishing a rebuttal to the Soon and Baliunas paper in a different peer-reviewed journal (Mann et al., 2003).
Science is a community-based professional enterprise in which it is expected and appropriate that researchers choose in which journals to publish, as well as recommend to their peers journals in which to publish or not publish. In this case, the bottom line is that the underlying science at issue has been shown to be flawed. The scientists’ actions were focused on this lack of scientific merit and the process that lead to it, and not an attempt to distort the science or the scientific literature. We disagree with the petitioner’s claim that the CRU e-mail authors acted like “activists” and not like scientists. Their focus was clearly on the scientific merits of the study at issue and the scientific integrity of the peer review process. There is no evidence to suggest that the CRU e-mail authors were attempting to manipulate the peer-reviewed literature. If anything, their actions aimed to police the peer review process and rectify a problem that threatened its scientific integrity.”

The EPA under the current US administration strongly believes in the conclusions stated by the IPCC, with the exception being the expanded use of nuclear power to generate relatively clean electricity.
Imo, it is one of the largest disappointments of the current US administration. (the other pushing to provide health care coverage to more people without the funds to pay for the expansion. The philosophy is likely to continue and expand in a 2nd Obama administration and is a major reason to oppose his reelection. (and I voted for him over McCain)

The EPA quote above is very narrow in scope until it gets to the last two sentences, and then it is completely wrong. To me anyway, climategate reveals serious flaws in the peer-review process (far and beyond those directly associated with the Soon and Baliunas article in Climate Research). These flaws should be fixed, as I describe in my post on the topic over at Master Resource “Climategate: Is Peer-Review in Need of Change?”

Of course the political appointees who have the final say at EPA have no vested interest in climate alarmism so there could not possibly be a bias to the response you quoted. I think that you are mistaken if you believe that policy at EPA is driven by a desire to use the best science to develop the best and neutral balance between the need to implement controls and the cost of those controls. The CO2 endangerment finding and all its associated justification was a politically driven insult to their own rules and procedures.

Do you have any evidence that the previous contributor actually has a vested interest?

If so, please show it for those of us who do not actually recognise his name.

If not, then I fear your comment reflects rather poorly on your rhetorical ability. My suggestion is that retraining as a lawyer would be unlikely to be your route to fame and fortune. You do not seem to have much of an aptitude for it judging on your contributions today.

Put it this way. Under one administration the agency decisions are over here and under the next administration they are over there. Political appointee vested interests rule, not unlike the rest of Washington might I add.

In retrospect and under full disclosure I may have a vested interest in climate skepticism because I emphatically do have a vested interest against the politically correct “solution” of a mitigation policy of an 80% reduction of 1990 emissions by 2050 because it would destroy the companies I used to work for, preclude the hobbies and lifestyle I enjoy and make the lives of my children and their children much worse than simply adapting to changes in climate.

That in no way diminishes the fact that EPA policy is driven by the vested interest of whichever administration is running things at the moment.

There are at least good and fairly obvious reasons why someone might imagine that the EPA is not exactly a neutral party in this discussion. Do you have any such reasons in relation to our previous contributor?

“There are at least good and fairly obvious reasons why someone might imagine that the EPA is not exactly a neutral party in this discussion. Do you have any such reasons in relation to our previous contributor?”

“There is no evidence to suggest that the CRU e-mail authors were attempting to manipulate the peer-reviewed literature. If anything, their actions aimed to police the peer review process and rectify a problem that threatened its scientific integrity.”

I believe this is called rationalization. Police the peer review process??? LOL, lol.

lolwot, the scientists being criticized clearly were just complaining about manipulation of the peer review process when they said things like:

Kevin and I will keep them out somehow – even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

That’s all Phil Jones was doing. He was just complaining that the peer review process was being manipulated. That’s why he said he would be willing to manipulate the peer review process to keep papers out. Because he believes manipulation of the peer review process is bad.

I insist that the Soon and Baliunas (S&B) paper that WAS under discussion is a case of scientists defending peer review from climate skeptic subversion only to then be accused of manipulating it themselves, in what I see as a tactic of blatant historical revisionism by climate skeptics.

As for the quote about the new paper you cite, it’s about whether to mention it the last IPCC report, not whether the paper should be published in a peer reviewed journal (it already was). The paper was mentioned in the IPCC report.

So neither example substantiates the wild claims skeptics make that climate scientists at CRU were gatekeeping the peer review system. Yet if you ask skeptics to justify their gatekeeping claims these are the two examples you invariably hear! If skeptics had a proper case for gatekeeping they wouldn’t need to rely on such flimsy examples.

It’s become convenient for skeptics to push the “gatekeeping” thing because it allows them to cry conspiracy when confronted with the fact that the published science doesn’t support their claims.

What it shows is that those whose other malpractices – including attempts to circumvent peer-review – were exposed (Jones, Mann et al), expressed their rage that views different to their own were being aired.

This is not limited to a single case. It is referring to a pattern of behavior. You may have chose to respond by discussing a single case, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is limited by your choice. We are free to discuss what was originally being discussed.

I insist that the Soon and Baliunas (S&B) paper that WAS under discussion is a case of scientists defending peer review from climate skeptic subversion only to then be accused of manipulating it themselves, in what I see as a tactic of blatant historical revisionism by climate skeptics.

This would require the paper be as climate scientists described, meaning you’re promoting a scientific judgment. I’d be happy to discuss the merits of your claim regarding the science of the issue, but somehow I doubt you’d be interested. A number of the criticisms of that paper were completely unjustifiable.

Ironically, a number could also be applied to the hockey stick. But you don’t ever see climate scientists complain about it receiving poor review.

As for the quote about the new paper you cite, it’s about whether to mention it the last IPCC report, not whether the paper should be published in a peer reviewed journal (it already was). The paper was mentioned in the IPCC report.

So the claim is they’re not manipulating the peer review process because he was only willing to manipulate what qualifies as peer review. That makes little sense. The process is what creates peer reviewed work, so manipulating the qualifications necessarily manipulates the process. And the fact he didn’t do something, or that he failed to do it, doesn’t weigh much on the fact he wanted to do it.

If skeptics had a proper case for gatekeeping they wouldn’t need to rely on such flimsy examples.

Given you completely dismissed one example based on a scientific judgment you’ve never justified, your discussion of flimsiness is amusing.

“This would require the paper be as climate scientists described, meaning you’re promoting a scientific judgment.”

Yes because the flaws are obvious even for a layperson like me. The paper suffers from the same flaw that the map on CO2Science does. The paper treats any warm anomaly over a vast amount of time (in this case 800–1300) as the “MWP”. Yet if in one region the warm period is 800-900AD and another is 1100-1300AD they obvious wouldn’t coincide and shouldn’t be treated as the same period which can then be compared to the 20th century.

“Ironically, a number could also be applied to the hockey stick. But you don’t ever see climate scientists complain about it receiving poor review.”

From what I’ve seen the flaws in temperature reconstructions have been far less obvious and took more work to uncover, and peer review isn’t supposed to spot all flaws. There is a threshold, IMO the B&S paper was far below the threshold. The resignations at the journal seem to support that.

“So the claim is they’re not manipulating the peer review process because he was only willing to manipulate what qualifies as peer review. That makes little sense. The process is what creates peer reviewed work, so manipulating the qualifications necessarily manipulates the process. And the fact he didn’t do something, or that he failed to do it, doesn’t weigh much on the fact he wanted to do it.”

Whether he was being hyperbolic or serious in his claim about “redefining peer review” he was in a position there to “gatekeep” what was cited in the IPCC report yet didn’t. Even if he had I don’t feel this would be good enough an example to support the idea of widespread CRU “gatekeeping” of the peer review system for papers published on climate.

The acceptance, despite the dearth of evidence for this “gatekeeping”, is rather strange coming from a group that demands such stringent evidence for science itself.

Yes because the flaws are obvious even for a layperson like me. The paper treats any warm anomaly over a vast amount of time (in this case 800–1300) as the “MWP”.

Really? You’re saying using non-synchronous incidents as evidence for something is bad, yet how is that different than what is normally done in multiproxy studies? In the hockey stick, the results were gotten entirely by giving one set of tree ring data extreme focus (a fact Mann acknowledges in his recent book).

Apparently the problem is Soon and Baliunas used more than one example. If they had just picked one and given it an unjustifiable amount of weight through bad methodology, it’d have been okay. Because:

From what I’ve seen the flaws in temperature reconstructions have been far less obvious and took more work to uncover, and peer review isn’t supposed to spot all flaws.

You heard it here folks! Soon and Baliunas shouldn’t be criticized because of how wrong it may have been. It should be criticized for how obvious they made their supposed mistake!

By the way, the supposed error lolwot claims was made by Soon and Baliunas is nonsense. There is nothing wrong with collecting a large amount of data and seeing what sort of similarities are found. And if you see a large amount of similarities over a period, even a 500 year one, it’s perfectly appropriate to consider them related. This is especially true since the generally established period for the MWP is several centuries long.

“You’re saying using non-synchronous incidents as evidence for something is bad, yet how is that different than what is normally done in multiproxy studies?”

I don’t know what you mean by normally done, but combining many local proxies into a single time-line seems necessary to synchronize them. If one local proxy shows a maximum in 900-1000AD and another shows a maximum in 1100-1300AD it’s surely wrong to take that as being a simultaneous “widespread” warm period that can be compared to the recent warming.

“Really? In the hockey stick, the results were gotten entirely by giving one set of tree ring data extreme focus (a fact Mann acknowledges in his recent book).”

That would be based on a whole load of statistical stuff involving PCA and other stuff I can’t understand it is feasible to me that the error could have passed peer review. This is not me being difficult, I just don’t find the errors in the original hockey stick as obvious. I definitely wouldn’t be able to spot them for example.

“Apparently the problem is Soon and Baliunas used more than one example. If they had just picked one and given it an unjustifiable amount of weight through bad methodology, it’d have been okay. Because:”

Sure, if it had been less obvious then the journal could have legitimately claimed it was a non-obvious error that just happened to pass review. The resignation and criticism from the journal itself suggests that it wasn’t really defensible along those lines.

“You heard it here folks! Soon and Baliunas shouldn’t be criticized because of how wrong it may have been. It should be criticized for how obvious they made their supposed mistake!”

It’s not a matter of why it should be criticized, but why it was criticized. It seems to me that the evidence points at the paper deserving it, rather than it being an illegitimate use of pressure to manipulate peer review.

“Brandon Shollenberger: “By the way, the supposed error lolwot claims was made by Soon and Baliunas is nonsense. There is nothing wrong with collecting a large amount of data and seeing what sort of similarities are found. And if you see a large amount of similarities over a period, even a 500 year one, it’s perfectly appropriate to consider them related. This is especially true since the generally established period for the MWP is several centuries long.”

I beg to differ. Here’s a CO2Science based MWP map that follows the method you describe:

This is used to claim a global MWP much warmer than present.

But why then do all the reconstructions not show this much warmer MWP?
It’s not all “team” stuff either. The Loehle and Lundvqvist reconstructions don’t support the non-synchronous “much warmer MWP” style map either.

The creation of single time-line reconstructions is clearly superior method to comparing different time periods. The non-synchronous cherrypick-the-warmest-period method is simply unusable, it presents a snapshot of a fantasy mosaic time.

This is not me being difficult, I just don’t find the errors in the original hockey stick as obvious. I definitely wouldn’t be able to spot them for example.

I’m not claiming you’re being difficult. I understand your position just fine now (I didn’t before). I just happen to think your position is a very peculiar one. You’re saying we should be bothered by the Soon and Baliunas paper because errors in it were obvious, not because they were bad.

I suppose that wouldn’t be such a strange position, yet what you claim to be such an obvious error is effectively no different than what is done by multiproxy studies.

I don’t know what you mean by normally done, but combining many local proxies into a single time-line seems necessary to synchronize them. If one local proxy shows a maximum in 900-1000AD and another shows a maximum in 1100-1300AD it’s surely wrong to take that as being a simultaneous “widespread” warm period that can be compared to the recent warming.

You say “it’s surely wrong to” do something, yet that’s exactly what would be done. When averaging the two proxies together, you’d get a period from 900 to 1300 with elevated warmth (obviously not as high as in the individual series). You might get a small dip from 1000 to 1100, but if you had another proxies with warmth covering that period, it’d go away. The very act of combining series (as long as not done in a biased way) is that peaks/dips in individual proxies smooth out, and a general signal is found.

The simple reality is multiproxy studies don’t synchronize data series like you say is necessary. The only time that happens is when biased methodologies, like non-centered PCA, are used. It could be done in a non-biased way, and it might be a good idea, but it’s not something which actually gets done.

The resignation and criticism from the journal itself suggests that it wasn’t really defensible along those lines.

I can’t imagine any way to tell the difference between people resigning in protest over bad editorial practices and people resigning because they dislike the “political” view of a journal. How do you do it? How do you tell those people didn’t resign simply because they didn’t want to be associated with a journal when such an association could be “bad”?

I beg to differ. Here’s a CO2Science based MWP map that follows the method you describe…

This is used to claim a global MWP much warmer than present.

Your disagreement seems to not to disagree with me, at all. I said it is perfectly appropriate to consider similar patterns observed near each other in time as related. You disagreed, showing what happens if you just look at high points over a range of time. That’s different than what I described.

As for Soon and Baliunas, what they did was simple. They figured if modern times do have an unprecendented signal to them, we should be able to observe that unprecedentedness within individual series. When they looked at the proxies, they found we don’t. There’s no error in that.

We breathe in air with 400ppmv CO2 and breathe out air at 40,000ppmv CO2. The EPA has actually legislated against breathing out CO2 and any government agency capable of this type of idiocy is hardly a credible reference

So the EPA, with a vested interest in alarmism, adds to the coverups already produced by UEA et al. What a surprise. Helping to “redefine” peer-review so that papers that fails the requisite political test are kept out.

I think I remember some tapes from the Oval Office in which Nixon when asked for hush money replied, “That’s no problem.” And then thinking about it for a second added, “But it would be wrong.” I believe you about as much as most people believed Nixon’s add on.

You are the one in denial lolwot. Try reading the Climategate emails. The ‘scientists’ who thought the paper was rubbish were the self-same activists doing their best to sabotage peer-review so that people who disagreed with them would not get published.

“That wasn’t about peer review, it was about inclusion of a paper in the IPCC report. The paper was included in the report.”

You really dont get it.
The authors of Ar5, however, do get it.
They explicitly correct the mistreatment that Ross’s paper receieved.
In Ar4 Jones and Trenberth made up facts about Ross’ paper out of whole cloth.

lolowot: Climate skeptics do not march in lockstep, for they have no orthodoxy to defend. Almost all agree that the climate is warming, and most appear to accept that some of the warming is anthropogenic. The real issues are whether or not the warming is “unprecedented,” anthropogenic CO2 is the primary driver, and the consequences will be “catastrophic.”

I do not doubt your sincerity. How about you putting your money where your heart is? Send a $100 to a family in rural Minnesota to help defray their higher electric bills resulting from renewable mandates.

These mandates are increasing the average household electric bill about 30% over that of residents in non-mandated states. That is real money. Ifunless people are getting a real bebefit from renewables, that is akin to stealing to make some Greenpeace supportor feel good.

lolwot,
I would have to disagree with your, and say that most agree that the globe has warmed since temperature records began (1880). The disagreement between the supporters and detracters of AGW is how much of that warming can be attributed to the rise in atmospheric CO2. While I know some skeptics who will claim that all the warming is natural, most tend to acknowledge an anthropogenic component to the recent warming. On the other hand, most of those I know who support CAGW contend that the rising rise in CO2 should have resulted in an even greater temperature rise than measurement, and therefore, significant warming is “in the pipeline.” They tend to dismiss natural warming more than the so-called skeptics dismiss mamade warming.

“I would have to disagree with your, and say that most agree that the globe has warmed since temperature records began (1880).”

No I think the bulk of climate skeptics don’t agree with that. I think they believe the instrumental temperature data for the pre-satellite era (1850-1980) have been so widely, systematically, and uni-directionally tampered with that it cannot be credibly asserted there has been any significant “global warming” in the 20th century.

“The disagreement between the supporters and detracters of AGW is how much of that warming can be attributed to the rise in atmospheric CO2. While I know some skeptics who will claim that all the warming is natural”

I think most skeptics will claim that.

“most tend to acknowledge an anthropogenic component to the recent warming.”

I disagree. I think most skeptics think it’s arrogant to think that man can alter the climate. I think most skeptics consider CO2 to be an insignificant trace gas that nature emits most of that can’t possibly alter the climate.

RE: most skeptics consider CO2 to be an insignificant trace gas that nature emits most of that can’t possibly alter the climate

Speaking only for myself, I think CO2 is a trace gas of possibly minor significance that may be impacting climate. Perhaps more important is my believing that the impacts from an increase in warming, whatever the significance of CO2 is to that increase, are of relatively little significance.

Right now I see something similar to the ivory billed woodpecker as far as climate change and the urgency to reduce our carbon footprint. In 2009 the ivory bill was reportedly seen in Arkansas. A lot of hoopla. It was later proven to be a poor job on the part of the researchers claiming to have confirmed the existence of the bird. However that didn’t stop the US Fish and Wildlife from getting a $27 million appropriation to develop measures to aid in the recovery of the species in Arkansas. Go back a little further and you will find that Big Thicket National Park in Texas and Congeree National Forest in SC both received the Federal support (re dollars) based in large part on “sightings of … wait for it … the ivory billed woodpecker. (My thanks to R Pielke Jr’s blog for this.)

As someone who pays taxes, it should be understandable that I have a problem with $27 million being spent to help a bird that doesn’t exist. Therefore it shouldf also be understandable my being concerned about more than a $100 billion being spend on climate research, with tens of billions more in higher energy costs being mandated, all with no hard evidence it will result in anything of value happening.

Well all of the skeptics I consider credible, and therefore the ones I read or listen to WOULD agree with that.

What I think is a big problem in the so-called ‘debate’ is the mis-characterization of the skeptic position by those who in particular invoke ‘consensus’. Most, who are simply skeptical that our emissions are going to contribute to a warming that is catastrophic, do not disagree that our emissions must cause ‘some’ warming, but they believe that natural variability both known and unknown can account for most of the warming that we have seen since records began. They simply don’t see that there is a justifiable case for alarm and the consequent expensive and disruptive policy implications.

“I thought there was no “skeptic position”. I’ve been told that over and over again by skeptics. They all have different and varied views, they don’t march in lockstep”

Don’t you think that this comment somewhat confirms my point?

By proposing that skeptics don’t have a single ‘skeptic position’ as an objection to my point that alarmists mis-characterize the skeptical position, you are in fact mis-characterizing the point I was making.

The ‘skeptic’, in so far as it matters to be one, is primarily skeptical against the case for alarm. And/or that the science is in some way settled. Those advocating alarm take the skeptics’ doubts that there is sufficient certainty in the science to justify it, as rejecting science altogether.

So when you say: “I think most skeptics will claim that….all the warming is natural” you mis-characterize the skeptical objections. It implies that skeptics don’t think that increasing CO2 will have any warming effect, which is not what they are saying. It then justifies arguing that skeptics “deny” science by rejecting basic radiative physics, also not what they are saying.

Lolwot,
If all the warmist claim that the warming is manmade, and all the skeptics claim it is natural, what would you call those of us who maintain a 1:1 contribution from each, acknowledging that the ratios could be off 50+% in either direction?

If others can state without evidence that “Almost all (skeptics) agree that the climate is warming” and “most appear to accept that some of the warming is anthropogenic” then why shouldn’t I give my opposite opinion?

Presumably you accept the first opinion because I didn’t see you demanding evidence for it.

‘Presumably you accept the first opinion because I didn’t see you demanding evidence for it.’

You may presume whatever you like about an opinion I have not expressed. But whatever your presumption is, it will remain only a presumption since you have no evidence for it. And it will hence be given due (very little) weight

If and when I present an opinion on the topic, I’ll make sure that you are among the first to know and will give some evidence to back it up.

Wer’re all liars. Humans are liars… let’s redistribute the wealth and open the presents now. Someone is going to be happy to tax you too. Once they were called ‘publicans’, that was in the ‘old days’ though.

Sociologists have a custom to write 1000 words (or 10,000), where one word would do: “scandal”. (Refering to the practices revealed by the climategate e-mails and the coverup of the 3 investigations on the matter.)

The reluctance to not only “critically examine the climategate affair, including suspect practices of scientists”, but expel or discipline the more obviously corrupt/politicized scientists like Mann, is probably the single biggest obstacle to broad public acceptance that there indeed is a serious problem.

If the case really is clear-cut, why the need for dishonesty? And especially, why the need to harbor those using dishonesty ?

A week ago, the Information Commissioner notified the University of East Anglia that he would be ruling against them on my longstanding FOI request for the list of sites used in the Yamal-Urals regional chronology referred to in a 2006 Climategate email. East Anglia accordingly sent me a list of the 17 sites used in the Yamal-Urals regional chronology (see here). A decision on the chronology itself is pending. In the absence of the chronology itself, I’ve done an RCS calculation, the results of which do not yield a Hockey Stick.
In today’s post, I’ll also show that important past statements and evidence to Muir Russell by CRU on the topic have been either untruthful or deceptive. . . .
Evidently, contrary to their representations, CRU did not use “all the data” after all. . .
Modern core counts for the regional chronology are about 20 times higher than core counts in the reported Yamal chronology, reaching nearly 400 cores in the 1960s. In the 1980s, core counts are still around 300, as compared to 12 in the Yamal chronology. . . .
Again, CRU’s claims not to have “considered” inclusion of Khadyta River (and other similar Schweingruber sites) is refuted by the FOI list. . . .
The “explanation” of insufficient time is completely implausible. They had already calculated a Yamal-Urals regional chronology. . . .their history shows that they have had a strong sense of what their results “should” look like and have, on other occasions, selected and manipulated data so that their results accord with “preconceived” results.

In the over 7,000 published stories here on WUWT, I have never used the word “liar” in the headline to refer to CRU and the Yamal affair. That changes with this story. . . .I don’t think incompetence is the plausible explanation anymore. As one commenter on CA (Andy) said
“I suspect the cause of all this is an initial small lie, to cover intellectual mistakes, snowballing into a desire not to lose face, exacerbated by greater lies and compounded by group think.” . . .
My sincerest congratulations to Steve McIntyre for the perseverance to finally get this issue brought into the sunlight.

May McIntyre’s light shone on the Yamal analyses help restore integrity and objective evaluation to paleo temperature analyses in climate science. As JC quoted above, climate scietists need to pursue the

four norms suggested by Merton . . .(universalism, communism, disinterest, ogranized skepticism). . . .
one needs to include viewpoints that go against the grain of the views of established elites of expertise and policy making.

I am hoping someone, somewhere associated with the climate science establishment – takes a good long hard look at McIntyre’s latest, points out any errors WITHOUT associated ad homs, and either agrees or rebuts WITHOUT recourse to “but it doesn’t matter because….”

BillC
Please point out the ad hominems and th elogical category. I have found McIntyre to be very reserved and understated in his comments. Similarly Watts had 7000 posts before changing his statement based on hard evidence.

Perhaps if you are looking for a formal rebuttal to something, you should provide us with a formal something to be rebutted. Or, you could look up whatever paper of his you are talking about, and see if there are any references to it that already do what you are asking.

So, sunshine, what you are saying is that McIntyre has trouble getting 2-3 other scientists to agree his work has value; therefore, there is an iron-clad conspiracy to keep his work out of publication.

Another, simpler, explanation is that he has trouble producing work that actually has value.

Sunshine, maybe you can try reading the primary source on the sauropod Mesozoic methane topic and tell us specifically what you find wrong in it. If you haven’t read it, then I don’t know why you are bothering to comment on it.

Well, the additional carbon in the air and oceans has an isotopic signature that is compatible with fossil fuels, and not compatible with carbon pre-existing in the biosphere. So, the answer to your question is, “no”, but don’t let things like physics and reality get in the way of your belief system.

FWIW,
This kind of thing has been done before. There appears to be a history of McIntyre pointing out errors in the works of Mann and others, but then making his own errors in estimating whether they are important or not.

“[12] TheMM05 code generated realizations of x having
roughly a fourth the variance of y, biasing RE realizations
toward being too large. MM05 thus estimate a RE critical
value substantially higher (RE = 0.6) than that of MBH98
(RE = 0.0) and incorrectly conclude that the AD1400 step
of the MBH98 temperature reconstruction is insignificant.
When the MM05 algorithm is corrected to include the
variance adjustment step and re-run, the estimated RE
critical value comes into agreement with the MBH98
estimate. (Data and computer codes used for PCA analysis
and the estimation of critical values are provided as auxiliary
material.)
[13] In summary, MM05 show that the normalization
employed by MBH98 tends to bias results toward having
a hockey-stick-like shape, but the scope of this bias is
exaggerated by the choice of normalization and errors in
the RE critical value estimate.”

This may be in violation of your request to avoid the “it doesn’t matter because”, but then, if it really doesn’t matter in truth, why would you want to avoid that?

But, more importantly, this demonstrates how science makes progress, by submitting work for review and critique, and rather not by allegations of deceit made from a blog. If McIntyre has valid criticisms of other research, he should seek to get them published as he has before.

Well, a retraction is basically admitting that a mistake was made, and your link says: “published retractions had increased tenfold over the past decade, while the number of published papers had increased by just 44 percent.”

So, you are saying that scientists being more likely to admit they made a mistake is a problem?
Would you prefer that they admitted mistakes less, and just left the papers out there?
Perhaps you expect everything to be perfect every time?
What do “contamination and misidentification of cancer cell lines” have to do with climate research?
What exactly is your point?

“It reported that retractions of scientific papers are “rising at an alarming rate” and suggested that the phenomenon might be revealing “a much more profound problem,” namely, “a dysfunctional scientific climate.””

But yeah, I know, “climate science is different”.

And your comment about Pielke Jr.? About what might be expected from someone wishing to avoid the issue.

‘And this time he has written allegations from his blog site. Again, that is my point’

Au contraire mon brave. Your observation just demonstrates how quickly the tide is turning against the traditional journal model. A few years back McIntyre could only gain attention via the tortuous and possibly corrupted route of print-based gatekept journals.

Today he has no need to. The world has moved on. The blogosphere has matured and grown. He gains a much wider, much more immediate and much more diverse readership in near real time. Nobody can prevent him publishing stuff on his own blog. Nobody can close him down for reasons of non-conformity. And I think a lot of very surprising people read his stuff with just as much attention as they devote to traditional methods.

You may find that the less regulated and less ordered world of the internet s not to your taste or precious academic sensibilities. But the genie is already out of the bottle and I don’t think you will be able to put it back in.

I also have a wry smile to myself that you choose the blogosphere as you medium to complain about ..the blogosphere. Yet again you reinforce my point. :-)

“Today he has no need to. The world has moved on. The blogosphere has matured and grown. He gains a much wider, much more immediate and much more diverse readership in near real time. “

That is probably true to a large degree. In terms of oil depletion research and modeling of fossil fuel reserves, just about all the deep analysis is taking place on blogs and open access writings. It has given inquisitive people all the knowledge that they need to make an informed decision and make a move towards a more sustainable energy future.

An enormous natural gas resource locked in ice lies untapped in ocean sediments and the Arctic permafrost. If this resource could be harvested safely and economically by the United States, we could possibly enjoy long-term energy security. Known as methane hydrates, this resource also may have important implications for climate change. When released to the air, methane is a greenhouse gas that traps 20 times more heat than carbon dioxide (another greenhouse gas). When burned, methane releases up to 25% less carbon dioxide than the combustion of the same mass of coal and does not emit the nitrogen and sulfur oxides known to damage the environment.

I’m sure that the development of the blogosphere has meant that a lot of interesting and worthwhile stuff reaches an audience that otherwise would not have seen the light of day, not necessarily because of any kind of bias but merely due to the space restrictions inherent in the print media.
Of course it’s also true that a lot of nonsense that would have rightly been rejected by any competent publication also gets an audience. The question is whether people can tell which is which.

interesting shift to the meta level willard.
the point remains. to get a hockey stick you need two elements
a. a linear method. any will do. all will smooth the shaft. of necessity they will smooth the shaft
b. any proxy with a blade. yamal. bcp. tiljander

Your question “got anything?” was not clear to me. I offered my interpretation. Showing that you’re playing Lobster Chess is certainly not irrelevant to what’s happening, here and elsewhere.

That you interpret this answer as a “no” shows you’re again playing Lobster Chess. It also shows that your interpretation of the tu quoque fizzles, since I’m not playing Lobster Chess. I don’t think shuffling scientific papers on an online board counts as a scientific endeavour.

What you claim having not said is irrelevant to the fact that “the Huybers paper you linked to wasn’t the last word” presumes there is one. If someone says that the cat is on the mat, he usually presumes there is a cat, and a mat. At the very least, you could have explained why you think that response you’re handwaving is enough to counter Huybers’ response, just to see if you’re here to parrot or not.

Chris G is handwaving. You handwaved back. I told you were handwaving.

Your exact comment was “But John M linked to the last word, no doubt.”
I simply asked “Got anything?”. Someone not intent on playing what you call “lobster games” (did you team up with Eli on that?— it sounds inane enough) might logically conclude “Got anything?” referred to whether you had any references to add to what you implied was my belief that I linked to “the last word”.

The name Lobster Chess comes from Michael Tobis, I believe. I do not like it very much, as the Tree Lobsters are being depicted playing with cards, but the name sticked. I do not like the game much either, so I guess it’s only fair.

I am not sure why I should play Lobster Chess to say that the concept of “being the last word” transforms a scientific endeavour into hermeneutics. Hermeneutics, void of any interpretation to booth. Just hands waving.

FWIW,
This kind of thing has been done before. There appears to be a history of McIntyre pointing out errors in the works of Mann and others, but then making his own errors in estimating whether they are important or not.

I hope you realize the fact somebody claims he is wrong doesn’t mean he is wrong. I also hope you realize offering a comment from someone without addressing the fact McIntyre responded to it is deceptive. It’s also silly given you say:

But, more importantly, this demonstrates how science makes progress, by submitting work for review and critique, and rather not by allegations of deceit made from a blog. If McIntyre has valid criticisms of other research, he should seek to get them published as he has before.

McIntyre published (in GRL) a response to the criticisms in the first link you gave. You don’t mention this. So even when he does exactly what you say he should do, you don’t give him credit for it. Instead, you side with those who say he is wrong, even though you don’t have the knowledge* to justify it. How exactly is anyone supposed to take your comments seriously?

Nevermind you ignore the bias in the peer review process, something which makes publishing papers an unreasonable burden on McIntyre. And even if he does publish, bogus responses like the one from Mann will be offered, accepted and promoted, no matter how obviously wrong they are.

Seriously, you promote Mann’s response to McIntyre’s criticisms, despite the fact he says ridiculous things in it. For example, his response to criticisms on the Tiljander issue are obviously wrong to anyone who knows anything about the topic. And yet, you offer it without hesitation.

*I assume you aren’t aware of McIntyre’s response, and thus aren’t justified in your position. If you were aware of it, and just ignored it, you could have the knowledge needed, but you’d have to be extremely dishonest.

Hmm, well, I did not find McIntyre’s response. And admittedly, it has been some years since grad school, and I no longer can tell off the top which author has the more correct usage of stats. I also have no way of knowing if you can do that or not. But if you think that it is better to make allegations of deceit from a blog than to submit a formal critique for publication, I find fault with your line of thinking.

OK Brandon, let’s see your favorite temperature reconstruction. McIntyre finds fault with Mann’s hockey stick, but there is a whole league of reconstructions, most recently BEST, which agree that something very different is happening over the last 50-60 years. If McIntyre’s position is that it isn’t, he has more than Mann to argue with.

That should give you doubt about the position you hold. If you’re not aware of major developments around the things you promote, how sure can you possibly be of your conclusions?

I also have no way of knowing if you can do that or not.

Actually, you do have a way of knowing that. You could ask me questions about the issues covered, and based on my responses, you could make your decision. You could also look at things I’ve written, and see if they are flawed in some way which would indicate a lack of understanding of the issues involved.

But if you think that it is better to make allegations of deceit from a blog than to submit a formal critique for publication, I find fault with your line of thinking.

Seeing as McIntyre rarely, accuses people of dishonesty, this strikes me as a false dilemma. Rather than do either thing you describe, McIntyre could just publish posts on his blog discussing issues. This is especially desirable since it allows him to discuss things which could never get published in a scientific journal.

OK Brandon, let’s see your favorite temperature reconstruction.

This assumes I have one. I could easily be of the view that temperature reconstructions cannot get fine enough resolution to be of any real value over the last millenium. If so, I’d say most multiproxy studies are wasted effort because they mostly just recycle proxies. I’d also say the best thing for the field would be to go get new proxies, and to update old ones.

McIntyre finds fault with Mann’s hockey stick, but there is a whole league of reconstructions,

McIntyre finds fault with many of those other ones. If you’d like to pick an example, I can discuss it. Until then, I’ll just point out temperature reconstructions generally use the some of the same key data sets, so it is no surprise they get the same results. As one example, Mann’s PC1, which was produced by his biased methodology, is used in at least half a dozen other reconstructions. How can anyone support those without defending Mann’s hockey stick?

most recently BEST,

Say what? BEST didn’t produce a temperature reconstruction. It only covers the instrumental period. It couldn’t possibly speak to the modern-medieval differntial. Are you sure you know what you’re referring to?

If McIntyre’s position is that it isn’t, he has more than Mann to argue with.

McIntyre’s has repeatedly stated his position. He says he doesn’t believe there is the data to say whether or not temperatures of ~1,000 years ago were equitable to modern temperatures. This means he says we don’t know what the answer is, it isn’t saying one answer is correct.

Criticisms regarding the use of the Tiljander sediments by Mann has little to do with stats.

The criticisms themselves actually have nothing to do with stats. Nobody needs stats to understand what is meant by, “The data was used upside down.” They also don’t need stats to understand what is meant by the more damning criticism, “Corrupted data was used.”

The only reasons stats get involved is Mann (falsely) claimed the methodologies he used made it impossible for those criticisms to be true/matter. And heck, the latter of those doesn’t even require stats to see as false. He admitted it is false in the SI for his 2009 paper!

So yeah, the only reason stats would ever be needed in examining the Tiljander issue is to answer the question, “Is it possible for data to be used upside down in Mann’s methodologies?” And that’s mostly irrelevant since whether or not the data was used upside down doesn’t change the fact the data was corrupted.

My position was that an allegation of deceit made from a blog site is less useful for the advancement of science than submitting critiques through peer review. So, no, whether McIntyre or his critics put out effort to have the last word in that venue is immaterial to that position.

Apparently you think blog material is just as valuable as peer-reviewed, because we all know there is no garbage on the web.

‘My position was that an allegation of deceit made from a blog site is less useful for the advancement of science than submitting critiques through peer review’

Why? Seems to me that work published on a popular blogsite (eg McIntyre’s) gets instant near real-time attention from a collection of hundreds or more of knowledgeable people. Any errors and/or mistakes can be shown up immediately and publicly. Within a few days the general correctness of the thesis can be determined or not. And all the arguments and discussions are there for all to see. Just like the early papers from the Royal Society – which were summaries of the meetings where teh subject had been openly publicly discussed.

The peer-review system for climatology however is done in secret by three or four anonymous reviewers who may or may not have their own academic status and influence to protect. Their deliberations are not public, and the process is very long-winded. We know (from Phil Jones) that they never actually bother to check teh work, but just to see if t ‘looks right’. This is not an exhaustive process, and only exists because of the limitations of ink on paper and postal technlogy that the internet has feed us from.

You may still consider that traditional, conservative peer-review provides a better ‘advancement of science’. But I figure that your finger in that particular dyke will not hold for long and that it will be obliged to evolve into something nearer the Climate Audit model. The inherent limitations of the old ways are just too many for it to survive in the new world.

My position was that an allegation of deceit made from a blog site is less useful for the advancement of science than submitting critiques through peer review.

First, that’s not the position I referred to. My first response to you specifically referred to you saying:

here appears to be a history of McIntyre pointing out errors in the works of Mann and others, but then making his own errors in estimating whether they are important or not.

This is clearly a position, and it is clearly what I was referring to. You and I are both well aware you can hold many different positions, each on different issues. The fact you have a different position on a different subject in no way justifies you conflating these two issues. It certainly doesn’t justify dismissing what I say by misrepresenting it. In a similar way:

Apparently you think blog material is just as valuable as peer-reviewed, because we all know there is no garbage on the web.

Why would you possibly say this? I have never said anything which would indicate this. It seems you just don’t care to read what people say. That would certainly explain this comment of yours:

Yeah, I know. But it does have a large upward tick at the end, and that appears to be what you, McIntyre, and others have a problem with.

This is complete BS. I have never said I have a problem with the “large upward tick” in the instrumental record. Neither has Steve McIntyre. In fact, we’ve both said we agree there has been substantial warming in that record (him more publicly). You’re just pulling things out of thin air.

To be clear, every time you’ve said something “appears” to be, or “apparently” is, you made it up. I don’t know why you’ve done this, but it’s absurd. I’m not going to keep responding to you if you just make things up about me. As long as you are doing that, you’re obviously not caring about what I say, so why say anything?

Having the last word does not always mean you are right either.

That’s true. In fact, that’s why I’ll let you have the last word. You’re free to make up whatever you want about me, and I won’t dispute your delusional interpretations.

“Chris G is just the latest in a long, long line of true beleivers who plays semantic little games to avoid dealing with issues.”

No I suspect he is new to investigating the climate debate. Being rude to him is counter-productive.

Chris G, I strongly recommend “The Hockey Stick Illusion” by Montford (who blogs as Bishop Hill). It is an excellent and extremely readable book and outlines McIntyres case against Mann and the “Team”. This was mostly written before Climategate (with which I am presuming you are by now familiar) and Climategate very spectacularly vindicated many of McIntyres suspicions, and provides quite an epilogue to the book.

It should get you up to speed in the most efficient and entertaining way on McIntyres long running struggle to reconstruct Mann’s work. It is not a shrill ‘denialist’ book, although the occasional touch of asperity peeks through, and it is impeccably referenced. You can check the veracity of every point very easily.

If you are honest and objective, it would be hard to come away holding your current view that MacIntyres claims are inappropriate. Good luck.

See Steve’s latest on Yamal. I’ve been struck by the concatenation of the Royal Society release stimulating Steve into his conclusions about Yamal and the timing of our Dear Leaker. Correlation, sure; cause, I dunno.
=================

Dr Curry – Regarding Climategate and ‘blundering.’ I recommend a visit to McIntyre today to read his latest post. He shines the light on deliberate manipulation of data (exclusion), not blundering. At some point, one has to call a spade a spade. It may seem more civil to refer to the Team as fools, but at some point, action speaks louder than words. Their actions show them repeatedly choosing to exclude data that did not agree with their planned results. Whether this is literally defined as scientific fraud or not is a petty question – they were knowingly dishonest. To treat them like excitable young puppies may keep some feathers from being ruffled, but it does the rest of us no good.

Climategate is a bubble and it will burst. Many are in denial about it and I suspect some didn’t even read it. I don’t think it can get more anti-science as in the emails. A textbook example of pseudo-science.

It is interesting that the post appeals to the concept of “ethos” but does not mention ethics, yet seems to equate the two. They are not at all the same thing. If you’re a lawyer, you will always question the ethos of the opposition’s witnesses. That’s both expected and correct, as the outcome is expected to be the truth found in conflicting testimony. (This is the Hegelian doctrine of Thesis & Antithesis conflicting to produce Synthesis…as well as ~3000 years of Western legal practice.) Therefore, the valuation of ethos or the fear of it’s erosion seems to be misapplied. Put another way, we celebrate ethos in the authorities assembled on “our side” of the debate. That ethos in turn, rightly represents nothing more than a bulls eye to the “other side.”

It seems that both sides in this debate regularly lapse into the valuing ethos over ethics. Naturally and necessarily, this places premium on protecting the credibility of the doctrine of each respective side. Due to this, new observations are integrated into the constructs of the respective “sides.” While ideas in conflict are part and parcel of science, a slavish devotion to either side (in part exemplified by the idea that it’s the “other side” that’s being one sided), is antithetical to advancing the state of knowledge.

A modest proposal: I’d suggest that those who embrace one side or the other walk a mile in the other side’s shoes. A week or a month (some amount of time) should be spent, arguing the case of the other side. Ideally this would culminate in a debate…with a prize to the winner of the debate so that there’s no sandbagging.

You might be one of the few who did not come to the skeptic side after some years wallowing in Consensual Certainty that it was an urgent and noble effort to restrain mankind’s “will he, nill he”, rush to stifle the atmosphere with deadening CO2. Most of us have thus walked much more than a mile or two in the warmists’ shoes.

Ethos should never be confused with “ethics”. The ethos of a group can be unethical behavior to another group, it is just what is expected of a group or an individual affiliated with a group. Used car salesmen have ethos :)

“Ethics” also depends on the group or individual. As long as people can rationalized behavior, there will be no single “ethic”. So when someone says they are doing the “ethical” thing for the environment or society, remember used car salesmen.

Climategate’s legacy so far is one of cover-up, ignoring and misdirection, since AGW extremists have so far successfully stone-walled, whitewashed or flat-out ignored reasonable inquiries into the matter.

Judith, you note, “Beck sees major flaws in the design of the IPCC, flaws linked to the linear model of policy making.” And then go on to implicitly endorse reformation of the institution(s). But every institution has a “Best By” date. Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that the rule-writers gradually usurp control from the productive and goal-motivated, primarily by writing authority for themselves into the rules. It thus morphs into a vehicle whose de facto “purpose” is expansion and longevity, by any means.

It must then be taken out and shot; it cannot be re-jigged by shuffling the players or tweaking the rats’-nest of regulation and procedural tail-chasing they have fashioned.

P.S. It is noteworthy that the “linear model” was itself just a sham; the reports of WGs 1, 2, & 3, as Donna notes, were in preparation simulataneously, with those of 2 & 1 retrofitted as necessary to conform to 3.

This is more than procedural lapse and inadequacy; it’s pure theatrics with a message hook meant to drag policy in a specific direction.

“Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that the rule-writers gradually usurp control from the productive and goal-motivated, primarily by writing authority for themselves into the rules. It thus morphs into a vehicle whose de facto “purpose” is expansion and longevity, by any means.”

It is painful to see these global warming charlatans squirm and lie to the people as they try to hide from their past and all of their failures and attempts ignore history — like previous interglacial Warming periods — or refuse to admit any fact that contradicts their preconceptions about a looming doomsday brought about by modernity. The politics of global warming has boiled down to watching the Left running from the truth by turning English into a liar’s language and simply dismissing the corruption of science so as to keep the hoax alive long enough to find the missing heat, take the thrown, and finally achieve their dream of founding a secular, socialist Utopia.

What these papers show, IMHO, together with Steve McIntyre’s latest revelations, is that, when it comes to CAGW, in vastly simplified terms, scientists fall into one of three categories.

1. The active proponents of CAGW. These people are liars and cheats, who distort the data, and who do violence to the scientific method.

2. The silent majority. Scientists who ought to know better, who are deliberartely blind to what the people in 1, are doing, and who are then silent. They are the equivalent of those who aid and abet in criminal acts.

3. The skeptics and deniers. These are a small minority who saw the truth that CAGW was wrong, ab intio, and who have been trying to restore the good name of science.

However, I believe all these new papers will accomplish nothing until one specific thing happens. They will be ignored by the silent majority and the MSM, and everything will be swept under the rug once again, and it will be business as usual.

The one thing that can change this, I believe, is if someone who really matters, maybe our hostess, stands up and tells the world how things are in words of one syllable. Who that person is going to be, I have no idea. James Lovelock was the most recent one to try, and his message fell on deaf ears. However, I still hope.

‘The one thing that can change this, I believe, is if someone who really matters, maybe our hostess, stands up and tells the world how things are in words of one syllable. Who that person is going to be, I have no idea. James Lovelock was the most recent one to try, and his message fell on deaf ears. However, I still hope.’

You are right. The fact our hostess hasn’t said this in words of one syllable suggests one of three things;
Firstly, that she is at best still unsure, hence the numerous articles on the themes of uncertainties, or secondly that she still largely believes in CAGW, albeit with more qualifications than many scientists, or thirdly is nervous as to what the reaction might be in coming out…Take your pick.
tonyb

Our hostess may believe in some minor form of AGW (but NOT in CAGW) but may still believe a) that the extent of AGW is basically uncertain and b) that her fellow climatologists who are advocates of the CAGW consensus dogma are out of line with serious scientific practice; yet she shies away from directly pointing fingers at specific colleagues out of respect for a form of collegiality.

As we all are.
There is evidence that shows warming, but if this is in anyway due to CO2 is hard to nail down.
The ‘Thermogeddonists’ with the kindest of judgments are guilty of over-egging the pudding, but by doing so they alienate seekers of the truth, and much more importantly debase science.
I would really like to know what is going on in the planets climate, and pretty much everything else.
However, I don’t trust pretty much any of the data in the field.
The kinetic modeling of atmospheric chemistry and of the carbon cycle are based on methodologies that were abandoned by mainstream scientists 3-4 decades ago.
The thermodynamics of radiation balance appears to be derived from an undergraduate’s cartoon.
The statistical analysis is execrable; most research institutes have actual statisticians on tap who they consult BEFORE experimental design and analysis.
The whole field lacks the inputs of experimentalists, statisticians and ethicists.

But, surely, this is a major omission by our hostess and the silent majority. I agree it is true that we simply dont know what is going on in the earth’s atmosphere. Why doesn’t someone who matters stand up and say so in words of one syllable? Why didn’t people with names like Watson and Houghton say this 30 years ago? That the physics is such that we cannot know what is happening by adding CO2 to the atmopshere. That would ,have been the honest and scientific thing to do.

But by staying silent now, people like our hostess are aiding and abetting is something that is little short of a criminal act against the scientific method.

The infuriating thing for me is that my warmist friends have payed zero attention to climategate. MOst don’t even know what it is. Those that do know point to the “investigations” which have “exonerated” the scientists. These of course, are the same people who swear that 97 percent of climate scientists believe global warming is a serious problem. To a great extent my liberal friends are absolutely immune to contrary argument.

Lolwot, you perform a valuable service here and it’s appreciated. You remind us over and over again how weak the warmist arguments really are. I’ve been reading climate blogs for 4 years now. I honestly can’t think of one rabid warmist who didn’t remind me of you to one degree or another.

The AGW bubble is busted. Alarmist schoolteachers GO HOME to your tenured positions in ivory towers. Something is wrong when the government-funded Education machine demands by government fiat that the productive fund lifetime pay and benefits for schoolteachers all at the expense of the productive who must actually provide something of value to society at a price that society can afford and that society is willing of its own free choice to purchase — with its own money — or, failing that society’s productive are out of their jobs. And, all the while, these self-defeating nihilists of the Left with their ‘pangloomian’ view of reality are destroying the culture, the society and the economy, and blame all who stand up against their fearmongering and their corruption of science and the political system.

If personal liberty and economic freedom is now to be considered an ideology instead of a right granted to all men by a Judeo/Christian God then capitalism will have to be considered a religion and the free enterprise system should henceforth be free from government interference in the beliefs of the producive.

a) The vast majority of people actually doing research are under siege by the vaster majority of those not doing research.

b) The snippets at your link are out of context and selected for display with a predetermined bias.

c) They are opinions of individuals and not representative of the research community at large. It would be highly unusual not to have differences of opinion within a large group.

Probably thousands of people have looked through those emails and no one has found any real evidence that calls into question any of the scientific findings. So, either the scientists were guarding their messages to each other for decades, expecting that they would be made public, or the whole climategate affair has been a colossal waste of time. Then again, any delay serves the interest of the fossil fuel industry; so, the industry which controls about 7% of the US GDP can chalk that up as a victory.

The basics of more greenhouse gas causing more warming are not in debate within the scientific community. There are lots of nuances of opinion on how much and how fast warming is and will continue to occur.

Chris G,
The vast majority doing research are not under seige by anybody. that is bunk.
If the snippets are out of context, prove it by showing the context.
The last point is meaningless: the question is not what the entire science community did. The question is what did those people whose work related e-mails were leaked do.
Most of Wall Street is not corrupt. If Bernie Madoff had defended himself by claiming most of Wall Street was not corrupt, no one would have taken him seriously.
You are clearly in denial, which is rather ironic, no?

The basics of more greenhouse gas causing more warming are not in debate within the scientific community. There are lots of nuances of opinion on how much and how fast warming is and will continue to occur.

The 14.77 micron band of the Earth’s thermal radiation is already so close to saturation that a doubling of CO2 from current levels is incapable of enhancing the greenhouse effect by any more than 0.4°C

If this was actually happening there would be a detectable effect from this increased insulation on the outgoing thermal radiation but 31 years of OLR measurements show no detectable effect.

In simple terms “it’s the sun” in less simple terms global temperature is controlled by energy in and energy out and since there is no enhanced greenhouse effect detectable for thye erergy out side of the equation it is by default changes to energy in that causes the global temperature to change.

Global warming is strictly about global temperature and the HadCRUT3 (with the CRU being the climategate Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia) monthly global temperature anomaly shows that the Earth has been cooling since 2002 in spite of the 35% increase in CO2 emissions over the past decade!

There is no debate in the scientific community since there is an absolute consensus that global warming ended by 1998 because all five global temperature datasets demonstrate this to be true.

“The 14.77 micron band of the Earth’s thermal radiation is already so close to saturation that a doubling of CO2 from current levels is incapable of enhancing the greenhouse effect by any more than 0.4°C”

At what density does it stop being saturated? I’m sure you are aware that absorption is a function of density.

Probably you are aware that density decreases with altitude. So, at what mean altitude do you think the CO2 absorption band becomes not saturated?

What happens to this altitude when the concentration of CO2 increases? Does it go up?

Perhaps you have heard of the environmental lapse rate. If you raise the mean altitude of emissions, what does that mean for the surface temperature?

You’ll have to come to grips with the answers to these questions, and learn some basic statistics, before being able to contribute value to this discussion. You have some things right, but you have got enough wrong to come to the wrong conclusion.

I gave up on Judith Curry a while ago. I don’t know what she think’s she’s
doing, but its not helping the cause
”
What is the ’cause’? That part appears to have been clipped.

Those in the tin-foil hat brigade can claim the cause is some sort of world government, technocracy, but it might just as will be the other extreme. The ’cause’ could also be trying to convince this generation not to cause unnecessary suffering and hardship on following ones.

So, you agree that the email snippet is open to interpretation and therefore means nothing, yet that site has included it as some sort of evidence, and you have linked to that site with the implication that the site is worth looking at, or at least presents some challenge to the “AGW convinced”. What, are you expecting us to go over every snippet, line by line?

Perhaps you should tell us what you think the strongest bits of evidence of malfeasance are before asking us to respond to them.

Or, maybe you think that the best evidence is that Dr. Mann is suggesting that maybe they should just ignore the man speaking bilge. If that is your best evidence of malfeasance, well, I find it lacking.

No Edim, you are throwing everything at the wall in the hopes that something will stick. And that implies you don’t really care if what sticks in someone else’s mind is of any real merit, so long as it helps your cause.

I read the statement. It contained the implication that mitigating climate change would induce more poverty, but ignored the fact that our industrial agriculture is optimized around current climate zones, and climate zones are shifting. Shifted zones imply less optimization and lower yields, less yields means higher prices. Historically, higher food prices have not been good for poor people. So, I found the statement to be tooled to promote an agenda and lacking in a full disclosure of information.

Chris,
No, reasonable people are seeing intriguing shapes and actions. Shapes and actions usually associated with corrupt practices. If bad thigs about reasonable people were leaked out, they would trip over themselves to provide context. Instead, we have coverup, obfuscation, misdirection, intimidation and whitewash.

And, you are adding that you don’t believe that changing the chemical and thermodynamic properties of the atmosphere will have any effect on the energy content of the climate system. Also, that only after crises happen will you be convinced.

I’m inclined to believe your assessment of your belief, even if I don’t share the actual belief.

“The thing is, you are convinced that something unprecedented (and caused by humans) is happenning with global climate. I am not. It’s just good old climate change.”

There certainly is strong evidence that there is something unprecedented about this. CO2 level is increasing at a rate unknown in Earth’s history. The level may have already breached 15 million year highs.

As for other areas of climate – sea level rise, temperature, etc, it remains to be seen what the knock on effect of an unprecedented jump in CO2 will have.

Chris, my cause is science and skepticism. I will always be skeptical of ‘consensus’ as long as the established science is so bureaucratic and dogmatic. These AGW scientists suppressed scientific progress and understanding, IMO.

The word “unprecedented” requires context. The earth is 4bn years old, there is very little that could conceivably happen to our climate that would have no precedent.
What is of course “unprecedented” is the existence of modern human civilisation. So an event may not unprecedented but the circumstances in which it occurs may be.

You got it here, aa; adaptation is going to be a challenge, and warnings of severe events key. Mike Smith has a new book about the lethal Joplin twirler, ‘When Sirens Were Silent’ or some such deadly cool name.
================

“The word “unprecedented” requires context. The earth is 4bn years old, there is very little that could conceivably happen to our climate that would have no precedent.
What is of course “unprecedented” is the existence of modern human civilisation. So an event may not unprecedented but the circumstances in which it occurs may be.”

Andrew, I agree and thank you for pointing it out. Modern human civilisation is the right context. However, my point was about the same period, maybe extended maximally to the beginning of the Holocene (“entirely recent”, ~ 10,000 years ago, can be considered an interglacial in the current ice age), but I’m cool with the modern civilisation context. Let’s say the last ~600 years. In which of the centuries (15th – 20th) there was the greatest climate change? My opinion is not the 20th century. In fact, the 20th might be even among the most stagnant ones. What do you think? Let’s see the reconstructions (hockey stick doesn’t count).

We can start with the instrumental records, here the BEST land (which IMHO exagerrates the late 20th century warming somewhat because of the anthropogenic local warming and confirmation bias):http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best

Unprecedented? NO, but I could be wrong. Show me the evidence! The earlier centuries could be even more variable.

I don’t understand your point about the circumstances. No AGW, but we have the modern civilisation and it COULD cause GW?

It doesn’t really matter what “cause” Mann is referring to. What does matter is the fact that his belief or participation in a cause raises issues of motivation and bias. Say he has a sincere belief that mankind is rushing towards a hellish future aa based on what his research is showing. That very belief may make it harder for him to accept data or conclusions that do not coincide with what he is already convinced is fact.

It is too early to discuss ‘the legacy’ of climategate. We are still at the stage of diagnosis, not treatment. It may be far too early to discuss the equivalent of prophylaxis against a future outbreak, if we don’t know the disease.
The data for a forensic evaluation is still unavailable: To what extent were the problems at IPCC/CRU/Mann et al. due to incompetence and to what extent intentional misbehavior? I don’t think we yet know.
This scandal grinds slowly, like a glacier. Keep in mind there are ongoing FOI battles and a raft of still encrypted emails. Climategate 3.0 anyone?
I will believe we are near the end of the disclosures when the resignations begin. Until then, I still class the misconduct as ‘an emerging signal hidden in noise’ — sort of like the climate.

ETH’ICS, n. The doctrines of morality or social manners; the science of moral philosophy, which teaches men their duty and the reasons of it.
1. A system of moral principles; a system of rules for regulating the actions and manners of men in society.

MORAL’ITY, n. The doctrine or system of moral duties, or the duties of men in their social character; ethics.
The system of morality to be gathered from the writings of ancient sages, falls very short of that delivered in the gospel.
1. The practice of the moral duties; virtue. We often admire the politeness of men whose morality we question.
2. The quality of an action which renders it good; the conformity of an act to the divine law, or to the principles of rectitude. This conformity implies that the act must be performed by a free agent, and from a motive of obedience to the divine will. This is the strict theological and scriptural sense of morality. But we often apply the word to actions which accord with justice and human laws, without reference to the motives form which they proceed.

“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”

—James Madison, FEDERALIST #57 (1787)
How can we train climate scientists to these high standards?

Lying and cheating and hiding data and subverting the IPCC and destroying evidence and packing the peer-review panels and attempting to get editors of scientific journals fired are not “blundering self-protection” to anyone but a college professor or a philosopher, Judith.

For the rest of us, those are serious matters, major scientific malfeasance or fraud, even crimes in some spheres, and your constant attempts to downgrade those to trivial actions are getting old and more importantly, they are damaging your credibility.

w.

PS—Whenever you find yourself agreeing with Jerome Ravetz, I suggest you check your compass, it’s an odds-on bet you are way, way off course …

Dr. Curry has never allowed herself to breach the Academic Wall of Silence, which forbids her from naming names and pointing out suspected or alleged misbehavior or scientific misconduct of fellow researchers, no matter how public the case or clear the evidence. It is unlikely that she will change her stance on this issue.

Her stance can be considered a vice or a virtue, depending on viewpoint.

One of my special interests and areas of expertise is personal and group ethics. Her stance is ‘ethical’ as a card-holding member of Academia…but might be considered unethical (counter-productive) as an individual and as researcher trying to increase public trust in Climate Science, her specialist field, as a whole.

As far as attempting to “increase public trust in climate science”, I think her actions have been quite effective – simply by showing the contrast between the approach of a true scientist and that of many advocates who are posing as scientists.

If that is the case, then what the hell are you doing criticizing my actions??? Buy a mirror and look in it. See that guy? He’s doing what he says others shouldn’t do.

As far as attempting to “increase public trust in climate science”, I think her actions have been quite effective – simply by showing the contrast between the approach of a true scientist and that of many advocates who are posing as scientists.

As long as she is claiming that all Climategate revealed was “blundering self-protection, to that extent she is posing as a scientist.

… I’m not “criticizing” you, Willis – I normally agree with what you write – but this time I just didn’t, that’s all.

Thanks, manacker. You said I should not “criticize or second-guess” Judith’s actions … I don’t see how that’s not criticizing me. I’m telling Judith I think she should do something … you are telling me I shouldn’t do something.

Kip Hansen, for at least as far as this blog goes, I think it’s good for Judith Curry not to “name names.” The problems she discuss go far beyond any individuals, so there is no benefit to focusing on individuals. Even if she was completely right about what she said about those individuals, all she’d wind up doing is making people focus on those individuals. That would detract from efforts to improve things, so why bother?

Kip Hansen, for at least as far as this blog goes, I think it’s good for Judith Curry not to “name names.” The problems she discuss go far beyond any individuals, so there is no benefit to focusing on individuals. Even if she was completely right about what she said about those individuals, all she’d wind up doing is making people focus on those individuals. That would detract from efforts to improve things, so why bother?

Indeed. It’s the same mistake as focusing on someone who has committed a crime by trying them in a court of law. The problems go far beyond any individuals, so there is no benefit to focusing on them in a trial. Even if people are completely right about what they said about those criminals, all they’d end up doing is making people focus on them as individuals. That would detract from efforts to improve things, so why bother?

Willis, if you didn’t flagrantly misrepresent what I say, I’d wager you’d think I always make sense. Your analogy is so false as to be laughable, so it’s hardly surprising you’d think it would make no sense.

I mean, we have investigations/prosecutions separated from political processes/community improvement programs/etc. for a reason: So those who are responsible for assigning blame can focus on assigning blame, and those who are responsible for solving problems can focus on solving problems. There is nothing surprising about keeping separate processes disjoint from each other.

And that’s the only explanation I’m going to give you. After the last exchanges we had, I don’t believe it’s worth any more effort.

Dr. Curry has never allowed herself to breach the Academic Wall of Silence, which forbids her from naming names and pointing out suspected or alleged misbehavior or scientific misconduct of fellow researchers, no matter how public the case or clear the evidence. It is unlikely that she will change her stance on this issue.

Her stance can be considered a vice or a virtue, depending on viewpoint.

Kip, read what I wrote. I’m not asking her to name names. I’m asking her to stop claiming that lies and cheating and subverting the IPCC and deleting evidence requested under an FOI are “blundering self-protection”. They are not. They are deliberate actions taken for personal gain and the advancement of their ideas.

I have raised this issue with Dr. Curry before, several times, and her position is clear and she is sticking to it. It is an personal and professional ethical decision for her.

Manacker is almost right when he says above –> ‘Judith’s actions are her own, not ours to criticize or second-guess.’ (He misses if he thought my comment was meant as a criticism, it was not, just a professional observation.) However, it is not improper to discuss another persons ethical decisions with them and suggest that they might review them in light of one’s input or persuasion.

There is a point though, which I believe has been reached with Dr. Curry on this issue, when one has to back off and accept that she has made her decision. To continue to harangue her after that point is uncivil.

I accept your point about ‘I’m not asking her to name names’ with the caveat that she can not very well cry fraud and scientific misconduct with regards to ClimateGate without implicitly ‘naming names’…..thus she does not do so, apparently based on her deeply held ethical position discussed above.

You are free to disagree with her position and decision but I suggest doing so within the bounds of civility.

Overall, I believe she is doing good work and moving things in the right direction, for which she should be applauded.

Overall, I believe she is doing good work and moving things in the right direction, for which she should be applauded.

Hear! Hear! IMHO, This needs to be respected, appreciated and said far more often. On this particular issue, I think we should also remind ourselves that the full quote with which Dr. Curry indicated that she agrees, was:

The problem occurred when the institutions (e.g. IPCC, journals) weren’t sufficiently robust to handle this, largely associated with the fatal flaw in the IPCC process: consensus seeking. And I certainly agree with Grundmann’s final point:

“We need much more reflection on this case which should not be closed off because of political expediency. The debate has only just begun.” [emphasis added -hro]

IMHO, anyone who chooses to investigate this “agenda driven hype” with an open mind will quickly come to the same conclusion as those who are more inclined towards fire and brimstone in expressing their respective views of what the Climategate emails (not to mention the subsequent so-called “enquiries”) have confirmed.

IOW, as the saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. [and I can’t believe I just typed that … Good thing my cat can’t read ;-)]

Kip and others, I guess my writing isn’t clear. I entered this discussion objecting to Judith’s characterization of climategate and what it means.

Judith says that she is not interested in spending the time to figure out the facts on Climategate. That’s her right, and I support her in that, although I think it is foolish and shortsighted.

But despite her claimed lack of information, she is more than happy to speak out and totally minimize Climategate, characterizing it as ““blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)”.

Now tell me, Kip, or anyone … if she herself says she doesn’t know the facts about climategate, how on earth can you defend her dismissing it as something as innocuous as “blundering self-protection”? How could she possibly know that if she doesn’t have the facts?

Neither Judith nor anyone else has answered that question. Instead, y’all want to beat me over the head for some unspecified thing you think I’ve done.

ANSWER THE QUESTION, dang it. She can’t both cop out of taking a position on climategate on the grounds she doesn’t have enough information, and at the same time take a position that in essence is “nothing to see here, move along, it’s blundering self-promotion”.

OK, folks, please take a step back, a deep breath, and think about the BIG stuff – this is actually small stuff. Judith is providing a superbly valuable service, YOUR contributions here and elsewhere represent a lot of the ammunition I use in my normal discourses with others, and I strongly suspect that the public bickering is harming our credibility with fence-sitters and other uncommitted folks. Please, let Judith do what she does, and let’s all build on it. Thanks.

To forestall these, one needs to include viewpoints that go against the grain of the views of established elites of expertise and policy making.

For example, the following viewpoint contrary to the “established elites of expertise”:

http://bit.ly/HRvReF
1) There is no missing heat.
2) China is not to blame.
3) The current GMT max for 1998 will not be repeated in the next 25 years.
4) Expect a further drop in GMT of 0.2 deg C in the next 10 years from its current value of about 0.4 deg C.
5) Blame it on natural cycles (PDO and AMO) ignored by the IPCC.
6) Blame it on points of inflection and turning points of curves.

Does it disappoint you to hear that ‘thud’ noise that a hoax makes when it and the charlatans who created it fall to Earth and just fade away?

Does it bother you that after millions have been spent on filing cabinets full of global warming junk research we see that the Democrat party is still aligned with the usual tyrannical regimes, tin pot dictators, fascists and commie states comprising the UN that wish to form a consensus against Jesus and Jews, capitalism and business, free enterprise and whatever will help crush individual liberty?

Can you deal with the fact that the seekers of liberal utopianism have no good ideas and cannot tell the truth about anything, that dead and dying Old Europe is moribund and Western civilization from Greece to California is morally, economically and spiritually bankrupt?

Then, this may be of interest—the Self-Examination for Self-Defeating Ennui (What is global warming alarmism?), here: http://wp.me/p27eOk-6s

It’s all very simple-nothing complicated about it. The global warming alarmists want you to live in fear; everything they hope to gain depends on that. The existence of the global warming alarmists demands that you must never listen to common sense so they will tell you that reality is far too complicated for you to understand.

Address your fears and grow. Be not afraid: the truth will set you free. “Fear always springs from ignorance” –Ralph Waldo Emerson

We know GCMs have been misused and science has been abused as a result. We know that GCMs have no forecasting ability. Even so, alarmists preach that you must fear the future and they will demand that society must continue to throw billions more at GCM fabrication to predict the future.

Sure, sure we get that but the alarmists fear the future no matter what the specific topic may be — not just AGW – they fear everything that free men do of their own accord, according to their own desires and dreams. It is their fears of what other people do, and fears of a future where individuals are free to do as they wish, that are the real reasons why the Left wants to deprive humanity of individual liberty.

Wag wrote: “If personal liberty and economic freedom is now to be considered an ideology instead of a right granted to all men by a Judeo/Christian God then capitalism will have to be considered a religion and the free enterprise system should henceforth be free from government interference in the beliefs of the producive.”

What can a rational person in the real world even say to that? I’m not even sure what the last part means. But if you really think that above sentence is not deeply, deeply ideological then there’s no sense trying to have a conversation. I can assure you, I’m just as passionate about personal liberty as you are. Perhaps more so. Let me ask just for yucks, where do you stand on the current “war on drugs?” How about a abortion rights?

Insofar as economic freedom is concerned, I clearly differ with you. First, God could care less in my view. Second, I do not believe as you seem to, that corporations should have carte blanche to despoil the environment as they see fit. I also admit…proudly…that I believe we need more and better regulations when it comes to banking. (I know, I know, Barney Frank caused the near depression of 2008 and it would never have happened if we’d had even less regulations in effect.)

Liberal fascism is the reason the global warming debate goes on. It’s the only reason.

AGW has long since ceased being about scientific discovery. It’s all about politics. That’s why we now see global warming playing itself out as a Democrat v. Republican issue.

Global warming alarmism showcases the self-defeating and anti-American intolerance that is symbolic of the tyranny of the Left. Americans have many rights: some are specifically enumerated and some are acknowledged to have been granted to all of humanity by God, a Judeo/Christian God—i.e., human rights that are personal to free individuals that cannot be diminished by contractual fiat.

Additionally, Americans have many other rights — penumbral rights emanating from the Constitution – rights that are not specifically enumerated but are nonetheless fundamental to the American experience. These rights are what the Leftist-libs would destroy from within and from without.

The Leftist seekers of liberal Utopianism use their democratic freedom to deprive others of theirs: using the democratic process to prevent others from employing their own mental, physical and psychic vitality as their own personal and individual interest shall dictate. The Leftist and -libs (progressives?) undermining of personal and individual freedom is Liberal Fascism.

Fanaticism, whether Wagonthonism or any other, almost always has some one entity to blame. With CAGWers, it’s CO2. With Wagothism, it’s liberals. Wagothons model is no more subject to modification by experience than is the CAGWer’s models. The data MUST fit the model. Fanatics almost always turn off those who might be allies. It’s happening.

Global warming is not science it’s a symptom. AGW alarmists in academia are Leftist ‘Occupiers.’ Rememeber when the the Industrial Military Complex was downsized and companies like General Dynamics and all their white shirt and tie programmers and engineers and blue collar makers of cruise missles, military transports, stand-off weaponry and electronic test stations for Top Gun fighters were cashiered out without a tear? Now it’s time for the Government-Education Industrial Complex to be downsized BIGTIME. We don’t need to subsidize anti-Americanis .

Trying to understand the follies and foibles of the IPCC, the hockey team, and the breakdown of peer review from a perspective INSIDE science is a pointless endeavor. It really, really does not matter whether Jones, Mann, et al are judged to be within or without scientific norms of behavior. What matters is whether science is meeting the needs of society. From the standpoint of society and effective policymaking, science is clearly very badly broken.

As Steve Mc pointed out at the very beginning of his interest in the hockey stick, governments have statutes and regs which require companies to prepare extensive due diligence packages of the science used in prospectuses in order to protect a few investors from losing small sums of money. Society expects that the quality assurance process behind the science which is used to justify government policies involving trillions of dollars will be at least as thorough. But it’s not. Not even close. In fact, from the perspective of those on the outside, science seems to have abandoned any effort to provide even minimal quality assurance. Science as usual won’t last much longer.

In the last year, we have learned that an extremely high percentage of groundbreaking studies published in the top journals are badly flawed. Peer review is a joke, but the most damaging aspect of all is the revelation that top scientists are more concerned with being published than with doing quality science. I don’t think scientists have the capability to regulate themselves or to organize a process that can provide sufficient quality to meet the needs of society.

The people are going to impose quality control from the outside. Transparency, accountability, audit and replication of all important studies used in policy, and a variety of checks and balances will become the norm in science. Having forfeited their chance to control the process, scientists will have no choice but to grin and bear it.

“As Steve Mc pointed out at the very beginning of his interest in the hockey stick, governments have statutes and regs which require companies to prepare extensive due diligence packages of the science used in prospectuses in order to protect a few investors from losing small sums of money. Society expects that the quality assurance process behind the science which is used to justify government policies involving trillions of dollars will be at least as thorough.”

I think the problem is actually that society doesn’t expect it. The reason that medical science and these “prospectuses” have stricter review is because society appreciates the danger of not doing so.

With climate, both society and government don’t take the threat of climate change seriously enough (IMO), and so they’ve left climate science operating with the same peer review system as say evolutionary biology, where AFAIK peer reviewers aren’t even paid! It’s review on the cheap. If we want better review that has to change. Proper solid review is only going to happen if it’s paid for.

Stan, I hate to break this to ya, but a high percentage of “ground breaking” papers in peer reviewed journals have always been less than ground breaking after a time. Peer review is a lot like democracy, it is a terrible system except for the alternatives. Blocking the publishing of papers is the issue. Every scientist should have the privileged of post publication peer and public ridicule for authoring papers that break more wind than ground.

The drug company that had televised commercials for a bed wetting medication that was 51% effective versus 49% for a sugar pill should have every right to make a complete fool of themselves. The artificial fat alternative that only had the minor side effect of rectal leakage brought many a smile to viewers. The University of Utah discovers of cold fusion also have a place in history. People, including scientists and doctors, have a tendency to screw up on occasion. When society forgets that, then there is a problem.

“Begley met a lead scientist of one of the problematic studies for a –hopefully–friendly breakfast. … We went through the paper line by line, figure by figure. I explained that we re-did their experiment 50 times and never got their result. He said they’d done it six times and got this result once, but put it in the paper because it made the best story. It’s very disillusioning.”

Science today is crap. There are no quality standards and fraud, negligence and incompetence are rampant.

I insist that the Soon and Baliunas (S&B) paper that WAS under discussion is a case of scientists defending peer review from climate skeptic subversion only to then be accused of manipulating it themselves, in what I see as a tactic of blatant historical revisionism by climate skeptics.

There is a standard procedure for protecting the world from garbage science, and it is not peer review. Peer review is only supposed to ensure that there are no obvious errors. What you do is you write a study that tears the work you disagree with to shreds. What you don’t do is try to get the editor of the journal fired, as the climategoons did.

In fact, the Soon and Baliunas paper has stood up well to the test of time, proving that the climategate folks indeed were trying to subvert the scientific process. See here. The S&B work was “refuted” by using the bogus Yang and Briffa proxies, as discussed here, which means it has not been refuted at all.

And from the climategate emails, here’s Michael Mann, trying to get them blackballed at Harvard:

But I know our Harvard colleagues are not happy about continually having their institutional name dragged through the mud. If someone has close ties w/any individuals there who might be in a position to actually get some action taken on this, I’d highly encourage pursuing this. Re, an NAS committee–this is an interesting idea. But I wonder if a committee on [Soon-Baliunas] would be overkill, perhaps giving these fools just the stage that they’re looking for.

Now lolwot, you’ve made it clear that you think that anything the climategate unindicted co-conspirators did is just protecting science, so there’s no need for you to restate that view.

I merely wanted to point out to people the kind of underhanded actions you claim are scientific …

“There is a standard procedure for protecting the world from garbage science, and it is not peer review. Peer review is only supposed to ensure that there are no obvious errors. What you do is you write a study that tears the work you disagree with to shreds. What you don’t do is try to get the editor of the journal fired, as the climategoons did.”

There is no such “standard” procedure. If you feel that a journal has failed to peer review something sufficiently you are justified in complaining about it, even if that does lead to resignations.

In fact climate skeptics themselves are hardly adverse to seeking the firing of scientists where they deem there has been a failure of peer review rather than writing a peer reviewed response are they?

“In fact, the Soon and Baliunas paper has stood up well to the test of time”

I don’t see how. It takes any local warm event between 800-1300AD in local areas as being the MWP irrespective of whether the local events happened at the same time, and uses that to determine how “widespread” the MWP was. That technique is the one the CO2Science based MWP map uses, it’s flawed.

“And from the climategate emails, here’s Michael Mann, trying to get them blackballed at Harvard”

That is probably not just because of flaws in the paper, but also to do with how the paper was used politically.

Again need I point out that many skeptics have called for Mann to be blackballed over the hockey stick? I bet any number of letters have been sent to his place of work by people seeking that end. Do you regard that as “underhand” too?

“I don’t see how. It takes any local warm event between 800-1300AD in local areas as being the MWP irrespective of whether the local events happened at the same time, and uses that to determine how “widespread” the MWP was. That technique is the one the CO2Science based MWP map uses, it’s flawed.”

Look at what they write about precipitation. Look at the proxies they use.
read Ar5. Certain aspects of their paper hold up. But at the time it was important to trash the whole paper and the people associated with it.

If you read through the climategate mails you will find converstions about how certain papers will be countered. Lets just say that there was more politics going on than many people are comfortable with.

On one side you have people who want science to be pure. they are idealists. On the other side you have people pretending that it is.

“Peer review is only supposed to ensure that there are no obvious errors. ”

This is how I understood the peer review process. And why I still am uncertain where the concept of “peer-review as some holy process” is coming from. Over at Real Climate, SkS, David Appell and many many others, the term is presented like a cross to ward off evil spirits.

I also understood the other purpose of peer review was to enable someone else to repeat the same work as the original presenters to see if they got the same results. In that sense people like Dr Mann fail, in the sense they don’t release code to allow others to duplicate their work.

Our universities shape young men’s and women’s sensibilities, and our professors are supposed to serve as guardians of authoritative knowledge and exemplars of serious and systematic inquiry. Yet our campuses are home today to a toxic confluence of fashionable ideas that undermine the very notion of intellectual virtue, and to flawed educational practices and procedures that give intellectual vice ample room to flourish.

WHAT REALLY OUTS THE GLOBAL WARMING ALARMISTS AS DECEIVERS AND NOT SIMPLY UNCONSCIOUS INCOMPETENTS is the absolute loss of the `OFFICIAL’ RAW DATA UPON WHICH THE AGW TRUE BELIEVERS’ FAKED SNAPSHOT OF THE WORLD RESTS. The original data has gone missing. The missing data, the foi2009.pdf CRUgate disclosures, the information contained in the ‘Harry Read Me’ File: these are examples of the methods the Left approves of to overcome conclusions that would be reached using the scientific method. Schoolteachers believe if they lie to you they can save the world. How sick is that?

Willis, if you didn’t flagrantly misrepresent what I say, I’d wager you’d think I always make sense. Your analogy is so false as to be laughable, so it’s hardly surprising you’d think it would make no sense.

I mean, we have investigations/prosecutions separated from political processes/community improvement programs/etc. for a reason: So those who are responsible for assigning blame can focus on assigning blame, and those who are responsible for solving problems can focus on solving problems. There is nothing surprising about keeping separate processes disjoint from each other.

And that’s the only explanation I’m going to give you. After the last exchanges we had, I don’t believe it’s worth any more effort.

Guess I touched a nerve …

Brandon, you mention trials and investigation and prosecutions. The point is that the miscreants have not been brought to trial. They have not been investigated except whitewashes by their friends. They have not been disowned by their peers. They have not apologized for their actions. They have not lost their positions.

In fact, while their supporters are quite happy to laud them by name, the honest scientists not only won’t name them, but describe their actions in namby-pamby quiche-eater terms like “blundering self-protection”. The Brits said they would have been investigated for actual crimes, except they had concealed their crimes until the statute of limitations had run out … “blundering self-protection” my asteroids.

As a result of that kind of intellectual cowardice, which you think is fine because there is “no benefit to focusing on individuals”, we end up with NO BENEFITS AT ALL. No lessons learned, no change in the behavior of the miscreants, nobody censured, no effect on the public’s loss of trust in climate scientists, no change at all.

And you keep telling us that’s OK, that’s fine, that’s what honest scientists do, they don’t say a word, they minimize the actions of dishonest scientists by describing them in the most bland terms and that’s what they should do … yeah, that’s the ticket, Brandon.

w.

PS—After what you describe as our last exchanges, you said that you were not going to reply, but it turned out you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. Now you’ve made the same claim. We’ll see if you keep your word this time.

“What you do is you write a study that tears the work you disagree with to shreds. What you don’t do is try to get the editor of the journal fired, as the climategoons did.”

vs

“The point is that the miscreants have not been brought to trial. They have not been investigated except whitewashes by their friends. They have not been disowned by their peers. They have not apologized for their actions. They have not lost their positions.”

Brandon, you mention trials and investigation and prosecutions. The point is…

I don’t know what “point” you think that is, but it isn’t one we were discussing. In fact, it has next to nothing to do with what I said. Just like how this:

As a result of that kind of intellectual cowardice, which you think is fine

Is complete nonsense. I’ve never said what you described is fine. In fact, I’ve criticized it on multiple occasions. You are just making this up, sort of like how you say:

Guess I touched a nerve …

You haven’t touched a nerve, and nothing I’ve said indicates you have. You’re just reading things into my comments which aren’t there. Sort of like how you say:

PS—After what you describe as our last exchanges, you said that you were not going to reply, but it turned out you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. Now you’ve made the same claim. We’ll see if you keep your word this time.

I never said I wouldn’t reply to you in any topic, ever. That includes this one. You’re just making this up. The reality is you said you weren’t going to respond to me anymore. Or at least, you said it would be feeding trolls, and only honorable people don’t do that. You then promptly replied to me several more times.

Now, that’s looking optimistic. Steve McIntyre’s assiduous study has since shown more than blundering self-protection, and something more like deception. I for one am hoping that there are many more releases of information from the various FOIA-related lawsuits.

I think what climategate does demonstrate is that the idea of dangerous climate change grew more out of a revelation rather than a synthesized consensus built from testing hypotheses. In revelations, the evidence is found to support the revelation. In a synthesis, hypotheses are tested and agreed to by survival. The former leads to problems like hide the decline and hockeysticks and Yamal problems and the long growing list of AGW failures.. The latter leads to the potential for good policy.It is easy to be lured into revelation.

To her critics, Willis et al,
Judith has provided the denizens here with an open forum where opposing armies clash by night.. and also day. She likewise posts assaults on her own credibility and her perceived position in the debate. In Judith’s forum the science of AGW is gone over with rapier assessments, not to mention pick axe force. And those still standing get the right of reply. -)
If that doesn’t show our host’s respect for the impartiality of the scientific process, I don’t know what does.

To her critics, Willis et al,
Judith has provided the denizens here with an open forum where opposing armies clash by night.. and also day. She likewise posts assaults on her own credibility and her perceived position in the debate. In Judith’s forum the science of AGW is gone over with rapier assessments, not to mention pick axe force. And those still standing get the right of reply. -)
If that doesn’t show our host’s respect for the impartiality of the scientific process, I don’t know what does.

Beth, the issue for me is not the impartiality of the scientific process. I’m glad that Judith doesn’t censor replies, to be sure, but neither do a number of skeptical websites.

My problem is that our gracious host has taken two contradictory positions regarding the malfeasance revealed by the Climategate emails.

One is that she has neither the time nor the interest to seek out the facts on Climategate. Seems like she’s taking kind of an ostrich position to me, but that’s her right.

The other is that what was revealed by Climategate was merely “blundering self-protection”.

She is more than welcome to take one or the other of those positions, but you can’t take both. You can’t both claim ignorance and say that nothing significant was revealed.

I’m happy to find that there are now social scientists writing knowledgeably and critically about the Climategate emails. That’s a sign that we’re much closer to the time when journalists will do the same. Most of the past (and probably present) social science investigation has been on why skeptics deny the science or how the IPCC and its allies can frame the scientific message so that it is convincing! Everything about the consensus science, the IPCC, the usually ignorant social scientists and journalists is based on the assumtion that the model projections are the science. As an oldster who grew up before play stations and computers (hell, there wasn’t even television until I was 8 and then only 4 hours a day) I wonder if the virtual world of computer simulations has biased you young-uns into favoring model projections over empirical data?

As we’re talking about climate, there’s no “annual climate signal” at all, unless you’ve discovered a way to separate that signal from noise on less than a 17-year period.

3. Compress:12 introduces a six month skewing of the data you select; further, starting in any particular month will produce a different compress:12 curve — there are a dozen different such curves, and yet you choose one arbitrarily. You could fix this by using a 12-month running mean, which both eliminates the skewness and the selection issue. You’ve been told this. You continue to do it technically incorrectly.

4. IF YOU DON’T PLOT DATA, YOU CAN’T CALL IT A GRAPH OF DATA. You are simply making a claim that is not true. Either include the data you use to derive your calculated figures from, or don’t call it data. Indeed, we all know what you’re using isn’t exactly raw data, as it’s been subject to adjustments and manipulations, so even if you included the monthly figures, without notation explaining its source, you’d be wrong to call it data. This is not just sloppy, but it is also misleading.

Normally, this would be merely a quibble. However, given your habit of hiding information that makes your theory look worse, you are being held to a higher technical standard. Especially, given as you have referred to your PhD, and your engineering professional credentials, this higher standard is not only expected, but also necessary.

To repeat, one more time — as we’ve been over this before — a smoothed curve is the result of an operation performed uniformly on all data in a dataset to produce a new curve suggested by the data under the effects of that transformation; a fitted curve is an approximation superimposed on a dataset.

There are about a dozen very serious deficits in the technique you have shown in this graph involving incorrect technical terms and methods. You’ve had these pointed out to you many times in the past. Yet you repeatedly circle back around to the same errors. Why?

Girma howed the same behaviour when he first emerged from under his rock over at Deltoid – whenever his serious errors were pointed, he simply moved onto a new error to arrive at his preferred conclusion, and round and round it goes until girma goes back to using his first errorneous technique that he knows is wrong.

It is technically permissible to say “fitted”; it is an error to describe a fitted curve as “smoothed”.

It is smoothed curve because it is derived from the observed 30-years trend. I did this by numerical integration using the trapezoidal rule, and this curve is surprisingly nearly identical to the trigonometric approximation.

Notice how much of a warmista Girma is?
That is because Girma shows lots of warming into the future. His great skills at trendology show no abatement at warming for like 200 years, climbing at an accelerating rate, because he included an accelerating quadratic term in his “theoretical” formula. This shows how closely aligned Girma is with James Hansen and some of his predictions. Girma has turned into quite the supporter of Hansen.

Isn’t that interesting that Girma has spent countless hours denying that he there is any climate warming yet shows warming in the one equation he keeps publishing?

“It is smoothed curve because it is derived from the observed 30-years trend. I did this by numerical integration using the trapezoidal rule, and this curve is surprisingly nearly identical to the trigonometric approximation.”

This is called bait-and-switch, Mr. Orssengo. You show the trigonometric approximation, not the product of integration. You claim they are nearly identical. Well, ‘nearly’ is a matter for the reader to decide based on the evidence you present .. which you don’t present. Hence, there is no ‘nearly’.

There’s just gamesmanship by you meant to ellicit an emotional or irrational response in viewers of your graphs and readers of your opinions; the weight of technical error and specious, illogical, grossly dishonest statement overwhelm any goodwill a reader might have had when first they naively approach these fingerpaintings of yours.

Anyone can show the use by the IPCC of the ensemble of model projections for GMT for prediction to be clearly wrong. It’s a poor use of a subtle tool, and the crafters of the models gave plentiful warning not to apply their work in such capricious manner. However, making clear what’s wrong with the approach of using the model projections as predictions is much more difficult with bad methods like yours muddying the waters, making the IPCC method look plausible by comparison.

Isn’t that interesting that Girma has spent countless hours denying that he there is any climate warming yet shows warming in the one equation he keeps publishing?

Why is that? Probably ineptitude.

What you have not included is if you projected it into 2100 you will have a GMT of about 1.2 deg C, which is not something to panic about. Besides, it is incorrect to assume the pattern will continue into the future. What I use it to predict GMT for the next two decades.

As for the quadratic term, that is what you get when you integrate the linear overall warming of the 30-years trend curve shown here => http://bit.ly/FO7Xhi

“What you have not included is if you projected it into 2100 you will have a GMT of about 1.2 deg C, which is not something to panic about. Besides, it is incorrect to assume the pattern will continue into the future. What I use it to predict GMT for the next two decades.”

Notice how inept Girma is, in that he presents a curve, which I plot over a time span, but then claims that his curve is not relevant. So even Girma admits that what he is plotting has no redeeming qualities.

The sad fact is that Girma is probably at the top-of-the-line in terms of climate skeptic skill-sets. He gives it a college try, which is much better than 99% of the skeptics that comment on this site. The other skeptics are quite in awe of Girma’s skills as he can actually plot a graph.

You say your model is closer than it is even possible to get on the data.

Your remarkable correlations are purely the result of invalid methods.

You compare your fitted curve not to the dataset but to a smoothed expression of the dataset. This is a meaningless practice.

“We have to describe the observed data as accurately as possible before we are able to establish a theory to explain it.”

Your statement is a truism of experimental science.

However, it bears no relationship with what you are doing. You wildly mislabel your graphs, use incorrect terminology, freely mingle disparate methodologies, hide data that contradicts your claims, and attempt to dupe naive and gullible people into believing what are clearly false conclusions.

You appear to belong to the philosophy of those whose moral compass dictates, “deceit in the support of one’s cause is virtuous.”

Manacker is one of the few that is beyond the level of Girma on the skeptic side.
Kudos to him for pointing out that fossil fuel depletion will put the breaks on emissions.
This is essentially the theme of Rutledge’s post just prior to this one.

Is not my model closer to the observed data than you can ever get? I have not seen a better model that is closer to the data. If there is, show me.”

Like you, Girma, I defer to the conventional models of temperature rise due to GHG. I am not so sure of your significant acceleration term though. Anytime an acceleration term is added, that gets the trend closer to CAGW.

Manacker agrees with your acceleration term as well, but makes the important point that fossil fuels are a finite resource and CO2 emissions will self-limit at some point in the future, in which case the acceleration will cease. I believe this is why you think your equation does not work far into the future and instead use it only to “predict GMT for the next two decades.” That is in keeping with a decline in oil usage due to depletion and demand destruction.

Nice to see the skeptic position merging into a combination of Hansen and Hubbert.

Basically, the 30-years GMT trend value is the slope of the smoothed GMT curve at the middle year of the trend period. As a result, this trend value is equal to the first derivative of the GMT with respect to year given by 10*d(GMT)/d(Year), where the factor 10 is included to convert deg C per year of the derivative into deg C per decade so that the derivative can be directly equated to the values in the above graph, the y-axis of which is given in deg C per decade. Therefore, the sinusoidal model with long-term linear warming trend that best fits the 30-years trend curve is given by

The 30-year GMT trend graph shows that the effect of volcanoes during the warming phase of the cycle is to slightly shift the trend curve by a couple of years to the right, but they appear not to have any effect on the final peak (P2, P3) and valley (V1, V2) values. In equation 1, the parameters a1, b1 & c1 of the model were determined by trial and error so that the model and the observed 30-years GMT trend have nearly identical values (V1=V1’, P2=P2’, V2=V2’ & P3=P3’) at the four turning points. For the correlation between the model given by Equation 1 and the observed 30-years trend data, the coefficient of determination was R^2 = 0.91.

From Eq 1 above, the smoothed GMT curve could be determined by integration of this equation as follows

The single unknown constant d2 above may easily be determined by substituting the observed GMT value for 1880 in Eq 2, which gives

-0.25 = a2 + d2 = 0.1098 + d2
d2 = – 0.36

This estimate of d2 is an approximate one because Eq 3 gives estimate for the smoothed GMT, not the observed GMT. As a result, a more accurate estimate for d2 may be obtained by curve fitting of Eq 3 to the observed GMT data from 1900-2011 with d2 being the only variable to be optimized, using –0.36 as its initial value. The curve fitting value obtained using gnuplot was d2 = -0.482.

In the above graph, compared to BEST (which gives the best correlation for sunspot numbers through isolates of any of the data treatments, somewhat confirming what an impressive job the BEST team did, that such a method is unintentionally tuned by the net of their work), sunspot numbers had a predictive power on GMT. This ended in 1960. The predictive relationship just went away. It’s gone. Using it would be crap.

Does Mr. Orssengo’s fitted curve have any predictive power? No. It’s crap. We have no mechanical explanation for its past fit. We know it’s past fit is actually manufactured in a specious and technically incorrect way. It sorta-kinda fits a derived smoothed manipulated, known-bad partially-corrected set of insufficient data on the speculation that there is a trigonometric function involved, but with too few periods of the presumed cycle for us to confirm it, by over 50%. When we look at the r^2 of his claimed ‘near perfect fit’ compared to the HadCRUT3 monthly data he uses as his basis for his smoothed curve, we find his fitted model is actually worse than a simple 0.2C/decade straight line for the past 22 years. That’s pretty awful.

Do the ocean circulations have predictive power? (By this point, you may notice by predictive power I’m not referring to predicting the future, but predicting unknowns from known values.) Yes. Very much so. ENSO is like a massive hammer on the global climate, but it is not nearly so well-understood as some claim, given that everyone’s predictions about ENSO are just wrong before very long. The combined effects of the PDO and AMO are very impressive, until about 1970 for the AMO with a slight drop-off and 1980 for the PDO, where the correspondence falls off a cliff. Currently, the oceans aren’t a great predictor of GMT, even though of course they’re each components of the sum. So right now, if we have an ongoing El Nino or La Nina, we have some indication for the next few months of an effect on the GMT, but otherwise not so much.

Otherwise, what appears to have predictive power is atmospheric composition. CO2 has a strong correlation, but it’s lagged, convolved and not the whole story by itself on spans shorter than about 30 years. Volcanoes are pretty potent at reducing GMT on the half-decadal scale, but it’s not like we can exactly predict volcanoes. Dust storms can have impact for a few weeks or months, as can massive forest fire events. Coal dust, too, can suppress GMT, but you never know when the Chinese economy is going to tank (hint, give it a little time, it’ll happen).

So with all these simple, broad, unpredictable influences that definitely give the appearance of affecting the GMT, and then sometimes just stop, there’s no way any model is going to be anything but crap as a predictor of GMT over the period of its run.

That doesn’t make the models crap. It makes the reasoning of people attempting to frame them as predictions of the future crap. They’re not forecasting tools. They’re at best “what-if” tools.

However, given how shoddy our measurement of temperatures and atmospheric composition and ocean conditions (we’re curiously pretty good at measuring the sun, despite it’s really small influence on climate in the modern era), it’s premature to try to use the models yet for ‘what-if’ logic, beyond noting that the models appear to not properly account for some factors. Which ought be no surprise, given human activities have so much influence on the climate, and humans are so unpredictable.

There’s a conspiracy of boogeymen doing something bad for money that somehow appears out of nowhere, because they drew tricky lines on paper, if I’ve followed your reasoning.

And then.. all I’ve got is that it was cold in winter in the past someplace, and it’s been cold in the winter more recently someplace, too. Which, sorry, I’m pretty sure means nothing at all, statistically.

Your chart is NOT a chart of empirical data.
It is a chart of “averages” and some unspecified curve
averages do not exist. The are the result of mathematical operations
performed on observations. We never observe averages. we create
them by doing mathematical operations on observables.
When you want to compare these “averages” to other “averages”
you must included the error bands if you want to make any kind of claims.

If you want to see how to compare the IPCC trends to the “observed” trends I will suggest that you study lucia’s charts. She will even give you the code. You will need to

1. figure out how to calculate a CI on the trend
2. figure out how to calculate a CI on the observations.

Girma
How do you distinguish your model from the null hypothesis of natural variations?
How do you distinguish your model from Nicola Scafetta’s? Or Don Easterbrook’s?

Recommend studying the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. Ignoring or not recognizing longer term natural cycles does not justify projecting your results very far. e.g. Why did the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age occur?

See, now you’re making a statement of probabilities. When you say “nearly”, do you mean within 50% of zero? Within 25%? Within 1%?

That would entail a computation to know. Where are your calculations? What numbers did you use to derive it? Moreover, what assumptions?

If you are assuming a linear response, then we can test that assumption on past periods in the datasets. We generally find that for any period the response is nonlinear. We must reject the basis of such computations at the outset, given this issue.

The discussion that followed from my wondering out loud if a generation growing up with computer simulated virtual worlds had biased some into preferring model projections over “the data” gives some credence to my supposition. Both sides use model projections as over-the-top predictions of catastrophe or normalcy or cooling or whatever as though the models were some sort of crystal ball! Yes, without error bars, models may obscure the importance of trendlines. More important, without making it clear to non-scientists and non-statisticians that models are hypothetical projections based on assumtions about past data, without doing that, and also making it clear that only future data will confirm or invalidate the model’s skill, without doing those things, the model takes on a predictive value and importance that it does not have. It is no longer the hypothesis of empicical science, but the propaganda of of advocates who falsely claim the “authority” of science.

I have raised this issue with Dr. Curry before, several times, and her position is clear and she is sticking to it. It is an personal and professional ethical decision for her.

Manacker is almost right when he says above –> ‘Judith’s actions are her own, not ours to criticize or second-guess.’ (He misses if he thought my comment was meant as a criticism, it was not, just a professional observation.) However, it is not improper to discuss another persons ethical decisions with them and suggest that they might review them in light of one’s input or persuasion.

There is a point though, which I believe has been reached with Dr. Curry on this issue, when one has to back off and accept that she has made her decision. To continue to harangue her after that point is uncivil.

I accept your point about ‘I’m not asking her to name names’ with the caveat that she can not very well cry fraud and scientific misconduct with regards to ClimateGate without implicitly ‘naming names’…..thus she does not do so, apparently based on her deeply held ethical position discussed above.

You are free to disagree with her position and decision but I suggest doing so within the bounds of civility.

Overall, I believe she is doing good work and moving things in the right direction, for which she should be applauded.

Kip

If any kind of comment on Climategate is “naming names”, then Judith is already naming names. So your position makes no sense.

She’s perfectly willing to name names when she dismisses climategate as being just “blundering self-protection” … so she can hardly hide behind that contrived excuse of yours.

Finally, you say:

There is a point though, which I believe has been reached with Dr. Curry on this issue, when one has to back off and accept that she has made her decision. To continue to harangue her after that point is uncivil.

Right … and I suppose it is “uncivil” to harangue Lonnie Thompson to archive his data after he has made his decision? Uncivil to harangue Michael Mann for continuing to lie about his actions even though he’s clearly made his decision on that?

My wish is that the rank and file of climate scientists were as concerned with scientific honesty and transparency as you are about civility. I’d gladly trade heaps of the latter for them showing a little spine regarding the former.

So no, Kip, I’m sorry, but as long as Judith continues to go all mush-mouthed about bad actions and bad actors, I’ll continue to call her on it. In my world there’s never a “best used by” date on requests for honest science, and part of that is pointing out dishonest science.

It seems to me that you’re making the typical fanatic’s mistake: instead of attacking the enemy, you are attacking those who are not sufficiently aligned with you. That is, you and Mann, et al, are essentially targeting the same folks: those in the middle.

You have no scientific reputation, no concern for funding, no peers, no scientific resume, so it’s easy for you to trash those who might not be as bold as you in marching against those who control the vast majority of scientific funding, jobs, opportunities, and PR. How about cutting the middle-ground some slack? Yes, yes, in some sense you can say that they, by their silence, enable the Bad Guys. But I’ve never seen good results from turning neutrals into the enemy. Especially when your true enemy is rich and powerful, and if those in the middle have to choose the lesser of two evils it’s clearly not you.

Plus, if you are to avoid hubris you need to be open to the suggestion that those who think like Judith may have some useful insight to offer you.

How’s about focusing fire on the enemy and let those in the middle sort out their information, stances, and allegiances without being caught in the crossfire? You will not force “spine” into those you perceive as spineless at the point of a gun.

Wayne2, if you think that the world is divided into enemies and friends I suppose you’d be right. I don’t divide it up that way. I push for honest open transparent science, and against both those who don’t practice it, and those who turn a blind eye to transgressions against it. I don’t view the people involved as if they were either my friends or my enemies. In other words, I’m concerned with actions rather than people.

But if I were to divide it into enemies and friends, I’d say that the biggest enemies of honest science are complacent scientists who say nothing. Here’s why.

You see, it’s guaranteed that someone will try to game the system. Not much we can do about that. Build a system, and people will try to game it.

But what we can do is to police our own backyard. What we can do is call scientific malfeasance out when we see it … and when we don’t do that, when we describe lying and cheating as “blundering self-protection” and do nothing about it, we end up supporting, nourishing, and encouraging deceptive science and dishonest scientists … who’s the enemy now? “We have met the enemy and he is us”, as Walt Kelley remarked.

Finally, you claim that I have “no scientific reputation, no concern for funding, no peers, no scientific resume …”. Although my scientific resume is by no means large, I have several pieces published in the peer-reviewed journals, including a peer-reviewed “Communications Arising” in Nature magazine … funny, they didn’t mention anything to me about my lack of reputation and resume …

I also have a host of scientific work which has been reviewed by much harsher critics, that is to say my scientific investigations and analyses on Climate Audit and WUWT.

You, on the other hand, have … well, you have an alias.

But neither the presence nor absence of a “scientific reputation”, nor the presence nor absence of an alias, should make the slightest difference as to whether we call a spade a spade. Because for dishonest scientists to flourish, all that is necessary is for honest scientists to call dishonesty “blundering self-protection” …

First, you’ve taken the “friend – enemy” tact several times in this thread alone. You don’t use those words, but your attitude towards Judith in particular clearly shows it.

Second, you took my sentence about your scientific reputation completely out of context. Completely. It was not about your abilities, but rather about what you have to lose as compared to those like Judith. Seriously, you don’t stop to understand before you react.

And you not only react out of ignorance, you go on the offensive and attack me? You, who have been on the receiving end of Team disdain because you don’t measure up to their prestigious standards now decide it’s simply okey-dokey to do the same thing?

You’re blindly and instinctively combative. I was trying to give you some reason to pause in your crusade, as someone who sympathizes with you and appreciates (most of) your work. And you shot me, because I’m “the enemy”, just as you deny you do. Foolishness.

Sometimes Willis goes too far. But not this time. There is ample evidence that some people at the core of climate science are rotten. It’s about time that someone among their colleagues stepped up to call them out on their quasi-gangsterism. Who’s it gonna be?

Don Monfort, here’s a question for you. What do you want this “someone” to say? Do you want that one person to stand up and criticize all the people and practices which deserve criticism?

That’s a long list. I could probably write a book for it. Do we really expect any one person to do it? I don’t. I don’t expect people working in one branch of climate science to condemn everything which happens across all branches. That’s too much to expect them to know about, much less combat.

I don’t expect someone working on climate modeling to condemn Lonnie Thompson by name for failing to archive his ice core data. I don’t expect them to criticize the hypocritical attacks against Soon and Baliunas for conflating temperature and precipitation proxies (which wasn’t true) while simultaneously supporting Mann’s hockey stick which did exactly the same thing. They have nothing to do with that stuff, so why should I?

What I want is far simpler. I want climate scientists to criticize the shoddy work and practices within their own fields. For example, I want dendroclimatologists to speak up when tree ring data is horribly misused. If their data is being misused, it makes sense for them to speak up.

In other words, I don’t want “someone” to speak up. I want everyone to take responsibility for what they’re responsible for. Outside that, I’m perfectly content for them to use Curry’s approach of supporting best practices and condemning bad practices, but not getting involved in individual cases.

I am with you on this one, Brandon. I want everyone to take responsibility for what they are responsible for. And not only the miscreants in climate science. I want the murderers and burglars, the despots and child molesters, the con men and peeping toms, to turn themselves in and face the music. While we wait for that, I would like to hear from someone, anyone, or a group of someones, with the guts to stand up and tell the truth. Like Serpico.

There is really no way that you can make sure that I don’t expect too much from any single person. I suggest you give up on that. I don’t see any group of concerned climate scientists stepping forward, so one would be better than none, until some of the others get some guts. That is, if one has the guts. I am not expecting it, but I am entitled to hope for it.

You know I get people asking me all the time to “repudiate” Anthony.
In much the same way that Willis asks Judith and other to repudiate
Mann or Jones.

I don’t think asking people to repudiate others is very effective.

Thanks, Steven. Well, to look at the flip side of your claim, not repudiating others (no public outcry from climate scientists, whitewash investigations, no loss of professional standing for the malefactors, no censure, etc.) has led to a large-scale loss of trust in climate science and climate scientists … how effective is that?

In this instance, however, I’m not asking Judith to repudiate anyone. I’m pointing out that there is a huge logical disconnect in her saying a) she doesn’t have time or interest to find out the facts about climategate, and b) what was revealed by climategate was merely “bumbling self-preservation.

Steven, we even have a very famous saying on the subject of repudiation, which is that for evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing …

So while asking people to take a stand regarding Climategate and the actions revealed therein may indeed not be “very effective” as you say, doing nothing is much worse.

Willis,
You and I are both retired. We have both performed many different jobs and seen much of the world (you more than I), but that’s over. Now we have the time to engage and criticize others on blogs. That’s fine, and you’ve made a well deserved name for yourself on the strength of your experience, knowledge, and judgment. Unless we verbally attack others with proven malice, we’re free to say whatever we want. Surely you know that an academic- I’ve been one of those too, and still am, sorta- does not have the luxury to do what you and I can easily do. There are undoubtably many alumni and others who would like to see Judy (or any academic who holds a minority position on a hot button issue) dismissed. The tragedy of climate science is not that a few have misbehaved, lied or deceived, but that the majority have been silent to the corruption of science. Judith Curry has not been silent. She is making it possible that others dare speak up. We all owe her gratitude for the risks she is already taking.

BZZZZT! I have a day job, pounding nails and cutting big pieces of wood into small pieces, and then fastening them back together into even bigger pieces. In other words, I work construction.

… we’re free to say whatever we want. Surely you know that an academic- I’ve been one of those too, and still am, sorta- does not have the luxury to do what you and I can easily do.

I thought that was the point of tenure, that you couldn’t be fired for speaking your mind, particularly regarding science. Why do we coddle people by providing them with tenure if they’re not going to tell the truth?

…The tragedy of climate science is not that a few have misbehaved, lied or deceived, but that the majority have been silent to the corruption of science. Judith Curry has not been silent. She is making it possible that others dare speak up. We all owe her gratitude for the risks she is already taking.

I have lauded Judith many times in the past for taking the stands she has taken, and I am indeed grateful that she has done so. But as I said above, it’s about actions, not people, and so when she goes all mealy-mouthed in describing scientific malfeasance, I will comment on that as well.

Finally, the main outcome of Judith taking a principled stand on some issues seems to be that she has become quite famous in the climate science world, and is invited by the mainstream media to comment on climate issues … if there is some big cost in her taking a stand for honesty and transparency, where is it?

I gotta say that “I can’t stand up for honest transparent science because I’m an academic” doesn’t pass the laugh test in my world … those are the very people who should be the first to stand up for honest science, as they have the most to lose from dishonest science.

Willis, I don’t attack individuals. I talk about institutions, and about actions, and about standards of behaviour. There are two reasons I don’t attack individuals:
1. I rarely have sufficient information to make such judgments, and have better things to do with my time than work to assemble such information
2. It is pointless in the larger scheme of things.

1. I rarely have sufficient information to make such judgments, and have better things to do with my time than work to assemble such information

FIrst, if you are as clueless about the individuals involved in Climategate as you claim, then what leads you to minimize their actions as “bumbling self-protection”? You claim that you have insufficient information about them, yet despite that you seem quite happy to offer a very definite and clear opinion about the unimportance of what they have done.

I could believe your disclaimer if you were to have said nothing. But you have taken a strong position on the matter. That position boils down to ‘nothing to see here, folks, move along, it’s just bumblers, there’s no bad intent.’ How could you possibly know that if you have insufficient information?

Truly, Judith, that excuse doesn’t pass the laugh test. You have taken the position that it’s just bumblers, and now you want to say you don’t know enough to take any position … sorry, but that dog won’t hunt.

Second, it is exactly that all-too-common unwillingness of honest climate scientists to become involved that the miscreants are hoping for and banking on. Thanks to you being too busy to protect your own field of science, they are destroying it. My congratulations, you are exactly the kind of person they need to continue their disassembly of scientific transparency. As I mentioned above, for dishonest scientists to flourish, all that is necessary is that honest scientists act like you—claim you know nothing, and and at the same time tell people it’s just “bumbling”. That leaves the perpetrators free to continue advancing their own alarmist agenda and as collateral damage, destroying the trust of the people in climate science and scientists …

2. It is pointless in the larger scheme of things.

Dear lady, if you are unwilling to take the time to find out what they have done … then how on earth do you know that a response would be “pointless”?

Judith, you can’t have it both ways. Surely you are enough of a scientist to notice that you can’t claim ignorance regarding a subject and then say a response would be pointless. How could you possibly know that if you are as ignorant of the facts as you claim?

If you want to claim ignorance of what was revealed by Climategate, fine, that’s your privilege. But in that case, my advice would be to stop taking positions on the subject.

Because when you claim insufficient information and also say it’s just bumbling, then the Climategate folks get of scot-free, and YOU look deceptive … and none of that helps either you, climate science, or the public trust in science.

I wonder if any of these sentences would have been different if Willis Eschenbach had read Judith Curry’s post correctly, and saw the word used was “blunder,” not “bumble”:

what leads you to minimize their actions as “bumbling self-protection”?

That position boils down to ‘nothing to see here, folks, move along, it’s just bumblers, there’s no bad intent.’ How could you possibly know that if you have insufficient information?

You have taken the position that it’s just bumblers

at the same time tell people it’s just “bumbling”.

Because when you claim insufficient information and also say it’s just bumbling, then the Climategate folks get of scot-free, and YOU look deceptive

The two words are somewhat similar, but “bumble” implies simple clumsiness while “blunder” implies a gross mistake caused by stupidity, carelessness or ignorance. Given there is a significant difference between calling something “bumbling” and calling it “blundering,” would Eschenbach have said anything different?

Personally, I don’t see how “blundering self-protection” could be viewed in a light which wasn’t extremely negative, but…

You have taken the position that it’s just bumblers, and now you want to say you don’t know enough to take any position … sorry, but that dog won’t hunt.

I don’t see the word just in Judith’s quote below:

‘blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)’

I read into ”agenda driven hype” a fairly strong criticism that the behavior of the Climategate consensus guys was not ”objective”, but rather ”agenda-driven”, and that their message was ”hype”, rather than ”observations based on the scientific method”.

We have quibbled about Judith’s stand on the Climategate culprits, but I believe the most pertinent quote regarding Climategate was the last one in her comments:

We need much more reflection on this case which should not be closed off because of political expediency. The debate has only just begun.

I’m sure you and I both agree that the “reflection” – and discussion – on Climategate need to continue. The white-washes need to be uncovered and corrected. The “consensus position” needs to be exposed as “agenda-driven hype”. The culprits need to be discredited. The extent of and root cause for their misbehavior needs to be scrutinized.

IMO the root cause is the IPCC itself – its mission, its reason for existence and its “consensus process”, but that would be subject to debate.

Most importantly, this debate needs to go on so that a bamboozled public can see what lies behind the IPCC “consensus position” of CAGW: agenda-driven advocacy disguised as science.

Willis….you should have stopped after your first sentence –> ‘Judith, thank you for your reply.’

You can not possibly think that your abrasive hack and slash attack-style commenting approach will be persuasive, as in: cause Dr. Curry to change her position. If this is true, why do you senselessly go on and on with the serial commenting, continually ramping-up the rhetoric well past any level of polite conversation?

If it is not true, if you do not realize that your ‘conversational style’ categorically must fail to persuade, then……what the ?

Let’s say I start attacking Michael Mann. What will that accomplish, other than to have him sue me? Mann has just won another big award. People disagree as to whether Mann is a hero or a criminal. For the sake of argument, lets say there are 5 bad actors in all this. If we get rid of them, do the problems go away? No, because the problems are institutional. As I said, pointless.

You write that removing 5 bad apples will not change things because “the problems are institutional”.

I’d agree that the root cause is most likely to be the IPCC itself – IOW an “institutional” problem, coupled with a “process” problem: the IPCC’s corrupted “consensus process”.

This has arguably allowed “bad apples” to flourish and rot (and even receive awards!)..

But one could also use the “chicken and egg” argument that without the “bad apples” there would have been no one to feed the corrupted “consensus process”, so the “bad apples” are the root cause. It appears to me that that is where Willis is coming from.

Important to me is that the “root cause analysis” continues, so that the problem can be exposed for all to see and then eliminated.

There is where I see the most valuable contribution by you or someone like yourself.

Heh, max, I had the same chicken/egg thought. Similarly, the cycle can be broken @ chicken or @ egg stage. So, Judy’s wrong about pointless.

In this case, the bad eggs have gone thoroughly rotten, got botulism or some vicious toxin in ’em. There is no healthy chick to be hatched from them, and to use the apple/barrel metaphor, they risk spoiling the whole future henhouse of honest climate science. Better the stink be aired, and antidote held in readiness.

Having read all the climategate emails, having read almost all of the science at play in the matter. I remain convinced that part of the problem is that many people, like you, have lost the case by overcharging the case. From the start until today there were two camps. Both wrong.

On one side the camp that screamed fraud, and hoax, and evil doers.
On the other side the camp that mumbled “nothing here to see”, boys behaving badly, lets move on.

My position, Judith’s position, is that there are institutional problems that allow for and help create the conditions for personal mis conduct.
Arguing about the severity of that misconduct in emotional terms, does not to solve the institutional problems. Humans will always fail. Burning mann at the stake or Jones at the stake will not change the system. It will merely make the next round of mis behavior harder to catch.

You think that repudiating mann or Jones will cleanse science? and restore trust? nonsense. there is no evidence that this is likely. Quite the opposite.

Science is a form of human behavior. If you want to clean up science, if you want to restore trust, then it cannot happen by mere personal proclaimation. “Mann was bad” Suppose Judith said that? would that
magically change data policies and code policies? would that magically change how funding is apportioned? would it stop gatekeeping? would skeptics finally accept accept radiative physics? would that magically transform the “gravity nuts” into better scientists? No.

Pounding the table and railing against mann and jones is DIVERSION from improving the science. It keeps us from fighting for institutional changes.

Oh, moshe, what a one-handed excuse. Don’t busy up this arm for then you can’t use either. Bah.

There’ll not be satisfactory resolution until the public understands that it wasn’t just ‘bumbling’ or ‘blundering’ what got ’em into the mess they’re in. Hoi polloi is not going to be satisfied, either with the polarization of the politics of science, or with efforts to contextualize this whole mess into innocent misbehaviour. The sooner the error is made a teaching example the better. Justice delayed is justice denied, but truth delayed is a Jack-in-the-Box.
======================

Furthermore, moshe, you hint elsewhere that perhaps some of the authors of AR5 are coming to their senses re some aspects of some of the flaws of previous reports, yet all around clown papers pop up out of boxes framed by skeptical objection to the ‘settled science’. This is an amazing institutional, practically reflexive, behaviour, but if you’ll inspect the impetus of these clown papers you’ll find the brainstorming necessary for the hatching of the papers to usually be the same nest of bad apples, or neighboring infected locales.

The applecart’s upset and needs help being set right. The henhouse floats off on a flood of criticism. Rebuild on higher ground.
====================

Willis,
climate scientists – – even Judy – don’t know the Climategate documents and backstory the way that we do, having lived through the pre-Climategate events in real time. Nor do I think that it’s unreasonable for third party scientists to rely on properly constituted inquiries.

I hold the “inquiries” primarily responsible for the unsatisfactory present situation. The Muir Russell and Oxburgh panels, for example, should have included a senior credentialed person who was familiar with the criticisms of CRU e.g. someone like Hu McCulloch or Roman Mureika. Handing it over to Geoffrey Boulton without any balance was a recipe for failure.

The failure of the investigations to create proper transcripts or to provide an opportunity to rebut evidence was a disgrace. Thus, some flagrantly untrue findings of fact.

While these dissembling “investigations” satisfied credulous climate “community”, they obviously did nothing to resolve questions or issues among critics – even questions that had a chance of being resolved. To a surprising extent, this unease seems to have permeated to the wider public, which now discounts claims even from uninvolved climate scientists. They are frustrated by this, but the problem arose by not demanding proper inquiries in the first place.

What if the Royal Society had said to East Anglia: you need to have a representative of critics on the Muir Russell panel? Much might have evolved differently. Similarly at Penn State: what if they’d contacted and involved actual critics rather than relying only on Gerry North and Donald Kennedy as the Inquiry Committee experts.

I also think that the entire Empire Strikes Back strategy is petty, self-indulgent and a failure. They would have been better off to do as Monbiot suggested in the first place: apologize. Then they should have created an absolutely open kimono policy on data for their most active critics e.g. actively asking me, you if we had everything that we wanted. No more FOI games. If I’d been running the other side, I’d also have tried to co-opt the more technical critics. Invite them to break bread; show them that the Team weren’t as bad as they thought and vice versa.

But at this stage, I dont think that it’s realistic to demand that Judy condemn the Team. It’s more realistic to ask her to condemn the “inquiries” though even that’s really too late in the game now.

This is another ‘hockey-stick’ dead-end that a relatively small number of people will take great pleasure in moaning and whining about in great length in agonising detail, while the train of science leaves them far, far behind.

Though, apparently, there is enormous fun to be had in quibbling on the sidelines over a long gone event.

I will note this. my life is made considerably more productive by sticking to principles. Open data. Open code. free debate. To be sure I get dragged down into personality fights. To be sure I start some of these fights. But more and more I find it exhausting and futile. For me it is not productive to focus so much on the personalities. Let me list some people: Zeke, Nick Stokes, Muller, Robert Rhode, Robert Way, Claude Williams, Matt Menne, Peter Thorne. good men all around.

I have a choice to make. I can focus on personalities and the past and fight bitterly with every person on that list. Or I can choose to find ways to work with them in good faith on actual problems. When I do the latter I find men of good will and good character. I can always pick a fight. I can always find something to pound the table about. That’s easy. I know. Been there done that. But on balance, I prefer to find ways to work with others who agree with those simple principles.

ready for the shocker. I’d help Mann or Jones in a heartbeat. for free. and not speak a single word about climategate. Does that confuse you? call me an optimist.

“institutional problems that allow for and help create the conditions for personal mis conduct.”

The IPCC made them do it?

Climate scientists are not obligated to be dishonest self-serving publicity seeking jerks by the existence of the IPCC. No more than bad cops are created and nurtured by the existence of police departments.

Climate scientists are not obligated to be dishonest self-serving publicity seeking jerks by the existence of the IPCC. No more than bad cops are created and nurtured by the existence of police departments.

What is with people blaming the IPCC for things? Why think “IPCC” when someone says “institutional problems”? Is that really all people think/know about?

What about the journals? What about the universities? What about the groups performing the “investigations”? What about the funding agencies? What about…

Seriously. Stop focusing on the IPCC. It isn’t what lets scientists get away with things.

Oh, sure, moshe, what would you help Mann or Jones do? Sustain the hockey stick? Re-inforce that catastrophe so loomed that perversion of the scientific process was justifiable?

Climate science has catastrophically erred, perhaps fundamentally in the science, perhaps perversely in the process, perhaps only half willingly in its uneasy alliance with politics. Unless institutions evolve, and individuals change behaviour, you’ll just get more of the same.

You obviously do more than just stick to principles, but protecting the derelict is not sound process.
===================

Don’t tell me what to focus on, Brandon. You are really becoming a pompous pain in the ass. Can you name an institution that is more responsible for the perversion of climate science, other than the IPCC?

Hey, I didn’t see you admonish Max for saying:

“IMO the root cause is the IPCC itself – its mission, its reason for existence and its “consensus process”, but that would be subject to debate.”

I think you are still mad at me for slapping you around a week or so
ago:)

I didn’t direct a word I said at you. I offered your quote to show a type of behavior, then directed my post at people. I probably should have been more clear. Feel free to change, “Seriously” to, “Seriously people” in my last paragraph.

You are really becoming a pompous pain in the ass.

I think you are still mad at me for slapping you around a week or so
ago:)

I haven’t changed how I behave, at all, yet suddenly, you say I’m different. I think that says a lot more about you than me.

Lighten up, dude.

There’s a degree of irony here…

Can you name an institution that is more responsible for the perversion of climate science, other than the IPCC?

The IPCC has no authority over scientists. It couldn’t prevent all the bad practices which go on in climate science even if it wanted to.

Mann, Jones, and the like most need help in the ‘there are some people whose work I’ll never read again’ category, and while the offer from moshe is made in good faith and with evident ability, help with their own integrity is something they institutionally cannot accept.

The work is so rife with error, and the process so perverted, that their results can only be right by chance, and what are the chances of that.

moshe postures with a proud gesture, but for what? What are the chances the real help he could give would be taken?
================================

OK Brandon, even though your post was addressed to me and your quoted what I said, your subsequent gratuitous chastising had nothing to do with me. You are now being disingenuous, as well as being a pompous pain in the ass. Carry on with your foolishness.

You are now being disingenuous, as well as being a pompous pain in the ass. Carry on with your foolishness.

A week ago you agreed with most of what I post. You now insult me and say I’m being dishonest. Either I’ve radically changed in a very short period of time, or you’ve made an error in judgment. What you ought to ask yourself is what the error was. Should you have not agreed with me earlier, or is your current view wrong?

OK Brandon, even though your post was addressed to me

Quoting you does not mean I’m addressing you. Neither does including your name, as that’s just giving proper attribution.

your subsequent gratuitous chastising had nothing to do with me

I never said my remarks had nothing to do with you. I said they weren’t directed at you. You could still be covered by them if I was directing them at a group of people you were part of.

This means your accusation of dishonesty is based upon you misunderstanding/misrepresentating what I said, twice. And you didn’t even address the point we were discussing.

It is pointless in the larger scheme of things.
This is no reason; it is nihilistic evasion which endorses the notion that institutions…actions…and standards of behavior do not matter.
If these things do matter, then, in a situation where sufficient information emerges to make such judgements, you may have a moral duty to speak out against certain individuals.
Your reasons are sufficient to defend a policy of rarely attacking individuals, not to defend a policy of never.

I thought that was the point of tenure, that you couldn’t be fired for speaking your mind, particularly regarding science. Why do we coddle people by providing them with tenure if they’re not going to tell the truth?

How could you say that?

Don’t you think what we most loath is ostracization by our colleagues?

Once the groupthink has formed along a certain line it is almost impossible to fight it from inside because your day-to-day life will become miserable as a result of the ostracization. Who wants to live a miserable life even for a single day? We can chip at the groupthink because we are not inside that environment and we will not be ostracized by our colleagues.

Willis, most people, to survive and to support their family just tow the party line. That is a fact.

… Once the groupthink has formed along a certain line it is almost impossible to fight it from inside because your day-to-day life will become miserable as a result of the ostracization. Who wants to live a miserable life even for a single day? We can chip at the groupthink because we are not inside that environment and we will not be ostracized by our colleagues.

Willis, most people, to survive and to support their family just tow the party line. That is a fact.

Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I’ve lived on the outside of the in-group for my whole life, and paid little attention to what the majority said, so I tend to forget that many folks are of the “don’t make waves” variety …

I’m not going to pick on Pokerguy so does anyone here have a cogent argument as to why the concept of individual liberty should be considered as nothing more than just another of uncountable ideologies from communism to liberal fascism on the Left to women in burkas on the right?

What I want to know is why individual liberty is somehow a function of Wagathon’s preferred deity, who is apparently an American to boot. I don’t think that J S Mill or Edmund Burke, who had something to do with the development of the tradition in the Western world, would be able to make much sense of Wagathon’s rather eccentric views. I am neither a Christian nor an American, and my commitment to individual liberty is every bit as genuine as yours. Please get off the soapbox (or out of the revival tent) and stop claiming a monopoly on virtue; it’s getting very tedious and won’t change anyone’s mind.

With regard to Judith’s post, while there is certainly a role for institutional failure (the IPCC and UEA being poster children) in analysing what has gone wrong with climate science, the real problem is that both institutions and individuals did not practice science in the time honoured fashion. They withheld data (and also lied about it, as Steve McIntyre has demonstrated), misrepresented results, stifled opposition and quashed critical review of their work. To compound the problem, they became enmeshed with sections of the political establishment in a mutual back-scratching arrangement.

When dealing with complex human problems, very often just going back to first principles (such as the proper way to do science in this case) is all that is really needed. Reshaping institutional frameworks and enforcing ethical and professional behaviour is not that difficult if you have sound first principles to work from, and the will to do it.

Well thank you for that and the reference to Jeremy Benthem whose preserved body is kept at the University College of London to listen in on what goes on there. Let’s get a little closer to home.

Are you sure “liberty” is an ideology and not an ideal? Are you familiar with Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and if so would you say Lincoln’s use of “liberty” is visionary or foundational” For example, would you say that “fascism” simply competes as an alternative ideology among those who prefer not to suffer the individual liberty of others? “For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Liberty is not freedom. Liberty is freedom from restraint. Freedom is a natural right that in civilized society is constrained only by the Golden Rule—i.e., you may do as you please without my permission so long as you do not interfere with the my rights and the rights of others. Liberty is the perfection of the natural law of reason and freedom founded on the intrinsic worth of the individual. “Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.” (Emerson)

You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last.—But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing. (Emerson)

Why do I call this a negative feedback? Like the backlash of Billboardgate, where HI’s leadership are digging in and affirming their experiment was exactly what they mean to say (while allowing the Guardian to make Gleick look the hero), it’s freed the most extreme to be recognized in the media and taken seriously by the middle.

In HI’s case, it looks like the most extreme are being taken seriously as extremely wrong by the middle; in the monster-hugging case it appears like the middle is now ready to hear the worst of the predictions of risk, things that were never said outside of limited circles.

“… as they describe the disruptions, suffering and destruction that manmade global warming is already producing …”

I still have trouble figuring out exactly which events and happenings the author co (or the people he refers to) could possible be talking about. Is there even one example of “destruction” that can be clearly tied to global warming? Who exactly is “suffering”? It is crap like this that makes it difficult to keep an open mind. As John Vernon’s character said in Outlaw Josey Wales – “Don’t piss down my back Senator and tell me it’s raining.” That is exactly how I feel when someone makes a statement like the one above.

*shrug* I read the article as a whole to be talking about what people now felt more free to say and to believe than before they did. As such, the claims talked about as already happening only need the tacit permission of public willingness to entertain seriously to be fair game.

So which events the author could possibly be talking about may well be any events, with the possibility the pundits and public may now accept what before they would reject: the notion that what they see today is the result of the actions of themselves, their parents, and their parents’ parents.

Recall, it’s not the ‘proof’ part that’s wanted by a public. A public ear is tuned to what’s accepted in the current paradigm, not what’s been proven.

If the media are recognizing that the public ear is tuned to ‘weather disasters are caused by human activity’, then the debate has moved far beyond the question you’re finding an obstacle. They’re no longer skeptical about the concept. They’ve accepted it.

Circumlocuting the accepted paradigm is possible to do, but it’ll be like talking to the highway patrolman writing you a ticket about how it was a optical illusion that made him think you hadn’t come to a complete stop, and if he’d only think about it your way he’d see your point. (Based on a true case settled by a judge in the driver’s favor, because the driver wrote a peer-reviewed paper proving it could have happened that way.)

There is a difference between the general public being interested in extreme weather events and whether or not they believe there is a link to climate change. The public may have little idea of what “causes” weather events. Hell, the experts studing events such as tornados will tell you they don’t know what causes tornados to form.

Given this lack of knowledge, reports in the media tying such events to climate change are basically falling on virgin ground and therefore able to take root. To use your example, the paradigm is being defined for the public and being done so on questionable scientific grounds. So we now have a highway patrolman whose union is taking payments to enforce certain laws more than others or only against a certain segment of the public. Is it ok for that trooper to only issue speeding tickets to drivers of SUV’s and pickup trucks? In a sense that is what is happening. I posed the question at Real Climate asking if there shouldn’t be concern about making statements linking Katrina and the Texas heatwave to emissions, when the US just went a record period for not having a hurricane make landfall and with the data showing that hurricanes are not increasing in either frequency or intensity. I asked if there was a concern for a crediability gap developing. The response? Moderated out.

The backlash has come and gone. This appears to be the entrenched public view for now; if there’s future shifts, they’re not going to happen until after the next election, so it’s not like they’ll hold anyone’s attention in the if-it’s-longer-than-a-soundbite-it’s-too-long media. The paradigm that doesn’t even recognize the possibility of traffic violations that don’t involve SUV’s and pickup trucks has stuck; neither the police nor the public will even be able to grasp what’s being said about minivans and sedans.

Though to be fair, I’ve never been to Real Climate that I can recall, so I likely miss part of your point.

Wagathon,
This a not a thread on liberty except as it relates to the legacy of climategate. It’s hard for me not to comment on Emerson. As a Unitarian-Universalist, we consider him one of our own- and yet most of us are social liberals whom you continually defame. Lincoln is my favorite president and before my synapses started to fail, I had memorized Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and even my cell phone number and wife’s birthday!

It’s time to close the loop Doug. It’s more important now to learn from global warming alarmism than to be alarmed by it. As AGW is a mass mania of the Western world its up to us to get a handle on it and especially us in America as we seem to be those who pick up the pieces when Europe flake.

Doug Allen writes : “Fanaticism, whether Wagonthonism or any other, almost always has some one entity to blame. With CAGWers, it’s CO2. With Wagothism, it’s liberals. Wagothons model is no more subject to modification by experience than is the CAGWer’s models. The data MUST fit the model. Fanatics almost always turn off those who might be allies. It’s happening.”

This is exactly right in my opinion. I very rarely engage with fanatics of whatever stripe because it’s exhausting and pointless. I have an older brother with a mental illness called “delusional disorder.” He’s a reasonable, intelligent guy with a good sense of humor, but with respect to his delusional beliefs, there’s absolutely no debating with him.

By the way Wag, I notice you didn’t answer my question about the ‘war on drugs.”.

Liberty means different things to different people. Compare the perspective of those who, while aware of it have never had it to those who have it in their power to gift it or withhold it. Compare too those who have had it and lost it with those who have died for it and killed for it. Now compare the above with those who would kill to be rid of it. If you are able.

Global warming is not the problem but fear of it is. Hot World Syndrome is a phenomenon where the global warming apocalyptic content of mass media imbues viewers with the notion that the world is a hotter and more intimidating place to live than it actually is, and prompts a desire for more protection than is warranted by any actual threat. Hot World Syndrome is one of the main conclusions of the anti-humanism movement of the United Nations. Additionally, murderous examples of failed socialism — as witnessed by large segments of Leftist-lib society from the safety and comfort of Western civilization — has created a global psychosis, causing people to turn on the morals, principals and ethics that otherwise would sustain their spirits and prevent them from succumbing to moral decline and mental helplessness. Individuals who do not rely on the mainstream media and who understand the floccinaucinihilipilification of the cabinets and cabinets full of worthless global warming research, have a far more accurate view of the real world than those who do not, are able to more accurately assess their vulnerability to present and future weather conditions, and all the myriad vagaries of life over which they have no control. The global warming realists do not fear the hand of man and tend to be nicer people with a life and have a wider and healthier variety of beliefs, attitudes, behaviors and lifestyles. Towing a boat to the river with the family in the back of a SUV is not evil, no matter what the liberal fascists may wish to believe today.

Violating cognitive norms? Hmm, a paradox of the CAGW debate, and overlooked by the climategate catastrophists, is that something as ephemeral as a cloud could be a significant actor in the cascading complexity of Earth’s changing climate…. oh well, life is a paradox.
Consider birds as an example, heavier than air and taking to the sky. Flightless birds seem much more feasible. And there’s paradox right here at JC’s site, talking marsupials and emus voicing similar erudite arguments opposing climategate catastrophism.
Talking of birds, Chief H, I’ll check out the bird poet, Amanda Johnson, at the Trades Hall on Friday.

IMO they have demonstrated that their culture is disingenuous (at best) and deceitful (at worst). They have sacrificed scientific honesty and objectivity in favour of being seen to ‘win’ the argument. And they have few scruples about how they go about it.

If I shake hands with one, I will immediately count my fingers and then check that my wallet is present and intact. If I read something by a climatologist I will be looking hard for the gaps and the sleight of hand.

My opinion is based on a careful reading of the CG1 emails both on release and more recently to refresh my memory.

That UEA/CRU should not be entrusted with any data more complex than their own expense claims (and then only under very close independent supervision) let alone with important climate data.

Reading the Harry_Read_Me file provides endless amusement for those of us with some professional knowledge of IT organisation and management. For sheer disorganisation and ineptitude CRU’s IT ‘management’ would be hard to beat. An Olympic class shambles, which would be hilarious if it weren’t so serious.

I almost feel sorry for poor Harry wading around in a pile of s**t not necessarily of his making. But not quite.

I’ve come to this post a day late, and after 309 comments. Apart from Bart R and lolwot, familiar voices, there are none of the usual staunch defenders of the orthodoxy. Why not? Is the subject matter too hard to deal with?

Perhaps the reason that few working climatologists have taken much exception to the shenanigans exposed in Climategate is that all of them act in the same way and so cannot see the problems that are obvious to those of us on the ‘outside’.

Which only strengthens my conviction that climatologits come slightly beneath estate agents, used car dealers and politicians in the trustworthy stakes.

What the silly buggers don’t seem to realise, is that if the IPCC cadre and Team *were* (loudly) thrown under a bus, and honestly in science given the recognition deserves again, a lot of sceptics would sit up and take notice.

I work on the buses in London. Please do not sully our vehicles with unpleasant debris from such a ritual execution. It takes hours to get blood and guts off the paintwork.

But seriously, I get the feeling that ‘The Team’s day has passed. Jones has done nothing of note in the last few years. Mann is busy hyping his book and litigating, Schmidt and Real Climate have dropped off the radar. It has been a horrendous two years for the Alarmists as every week seems to bring another presentational, political or data-driven disaster for them. Their reputations are falling fast and it seems that they have few defenders among the remaining faithful.

Those few who do still hold fast to the Old Faith are taking the line that Climategate was all a storm in a teacup and should be quickly forgotten while we move forward and look to the future. The perps will not be thrown under a bus, but just cast by the wayside and left to rot quietly in obscurity.

This strategy does not seem to be working very well. Climategate will be a running sore for the Alarmists for another few years yet.

If nothing else, it provided the catalyst for more realistic voices to realise that the edifice of CAGW was not unassailable scientifc truth, but just a ragbag of dodgy data to create dodgy papers nodded through a dodgy system of ‘review’ by some very dodgy people who have the effrontery to call themselves ‘scientists’.

With this realisation came the confidence to seriously challenge The Team. That this blog exists at all is but one example of the effects of the Blessed Release we call Climategate.

“Their reputations are falling fast and it seems that they have few defenders among the remaining faithful.”

Latimer Alder, I tried to point out in a recent post here with a comment citing scripture, that who you call ‘faithful’ are more than likely ‘deniers’ of Christ, just as they deny the evidence showing AGW science to be fraudulent to its core. The word you should be using to describe what they are doing is ‘con’, a contraction of the word ‘confidence’. As in “They worked a long-con on the widow Smith.” It is usually a non-violent crime to begin with but these types of people don’t care much for morals, they prefer a thirty hour ethics class like the SS is taking to patch up their recent mistakes south of a boarder.

In the future if you wouldn’t mind calling them ‘confidence’ (con) men & women, it would help this discussion move faster and in its proper direction. Thank you.

I don’t know about that, Don, but I do know that it is generally intellectually honest to accurately identify the author’s theoretical approach to social analysis, otherwise you may misunderstand important features of it. Reiner’s discussion of democracy and ecology is informed by socialist analysis. I find it hopeful when conservative denizens applaud these insights.

In this paper discussed by Curry, Reiner’s argument supports the role of experts/advisors in modern democratic institutions and seeks to separate this role from the role of professionals, such as scientists. Overall, I agree with this reasoning.

I’m the staunch advocate of tearing down the shambles of orthodoxy: data hoarding and data hiding, slow and opaque publication and review, inverted incentives in research, top-down stratification of science where the outdated rule the innovative, a culture of everything not in the spirit of science strangling the enthusiasm for that very spirit in young scientists, failure to develop systems that actually support investigation and communication.

That I also point out facts where people veer from them freely, remind of actual events rather than the fantastical narratives of biased voices, and remember that there are bounds on what can be done doesn’t make me a defender of the causes of the symptoms seen in Climategate.

It just means I don’t think lying, ignorance and irrationality will solve problems of science.

The main ones i see being defended here are the very old ones; man can have no influence on such a vast system as climate, it’s all too complex for us to ever really understand, it might be warming but that is probably a good thing.

Michael,
Not surprisingly, you are incorrect. In the early 20th century, when the elites were not busy pushing eugenics legislation they were oscillating between worries the world was going to melt and freeze.

Irony,
Thy name is Michael. Michael is able to demonstrate historical illiteracy, ignorance in general and arrogant pride in both in just a few quick words.
Thanks, Michael. You are inspiration to true believers everywhere.

In his recent statement, James Lovelock said something like “We thought we knew what the physics was 30 years ago. As it turns out, we didn’t”. My point is that he, and all the other learned scientists OUGHT to have known that they did not know. That the physics on which they based their belief was just plain wrong. And they ought to have said so 30 years ago. And it is even more important to say so now.

10 years ago, when I first started looking into CAGW, it was obvious to me that CAGW was just plain wrong. It has taken me nearly 10 years to work out WHY it is wrong. And the reason is quite simple. No-one, least of all our hostess, has the slightest idea whatsoever how to go from a change of forcing (I hate that term) to a change of surface temperature. This is an extremely complex problem of which NO-ONE knows the solution. This should have been obvious 30 years ago.

The so-called no feedback climate sensitivity of an alleged 1 C for a doubling of CO2 is a travesty in physics. It is a number that can NEVER be measured, and the value of about 1 C is hypothetical and completely meaningless. Unfortunately, people like Richard Lindzen are misquoted on this issue. What Richard says, is something like “Even if I concede the 1C for a doubling of CO2, there still isn ‘t a problem with CAGW.” I dont believe he has ever endorsed the 1 C.

This is the truth that the proponents of CAGW refuse to acknowledge. They persist in their lying and cheating way that they claim that the result can be derived by assuming that it can be done by ONLY looking at the radiation term; completely neglecting the overwhelming contributions of conduction, convection, the latent heat of water, the albedo of clouds, etc. etc.; the whole schmere of all the things we dont know and cannot quantify. It is not a question of uncertainly that our hostess continually emphasises, it is that we just dont know. Physics does not allow us to solve the problem.

And what little observed data we have indicates that the effect of adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels in negligible.

These are the truths that the proponents of CAGW lie and cheat about. And this is the dereliction of duty of the silent majority for not shouting this from the mountain top.

Jim,
I will gives James the benefit of the doubt here, as sometimes we do not know that we do not know. Sometimes, we think we have all the relevant information, and proceed ignorantly. My problem is not that they should have said so 30 years ago, rather that they should have said so 10 years ago, and should be saying so now. The number of CAGW believers is dwindling as more and more scientists discover that they cannot change the views of the most staunch believers, and jump ship. The remaining supporters are now more alienated and extreme in their beliefs, such that the entire movement has moved further from reality. My favorites are the graphs which restate temperatures from the 2000s showing that the warming trend of the 90s has continued unchanged. The deny that temperatures have not risen globally since, and ironically, referring to those who do as, “deniers.”

“The so-called no feedback climate sensitivity of an alleged 1 C for a doubling of CO2 is a travesty in physics. It is a number that can NEVER be measured”

It isn’t supposed to be a number that can be measured.

“They persist in their lying and cheating way that they claim that the result can be derived by assuming that it can be done by ONLY looking at the radiation term; completely neglecting the overwhelming contributions of conduction, convection, the latent heat of water, the albedo of clouds, etc. etc.”

That’s the whole point of the term. That’s why it’s called the “NO feedback climate sensitivity”, because it contains NONE of the feedbacks you mention.

The point is that we have a starting point. A 4wm-2 imbalance cannot be maintained. To close it something has to change. If temperature does all the change – ie nothing else changes – then temperature must increase 1C to close the imbalance. That’s the no feedback sensitivity then.

Everything else will change though, but how much and in what direction?

The point is without any further knowledge the feedbacks could go either way. But starting point upon which we add those feedbacks is 1C, not 0C and that difference is major.

Lolwot,
Yes, the 1C empirical number is a good starting point, and should be called the no feedback sensitivity. In nature, feedbacks are typically restricted to between 0 and 100% of this value. What I find is particularly disturbing, is that there are those who here are those who think that feedbacks will overwhelm the systems, such that the starting point (1C) is not even part of their likely range.

Dan, first of all, your “In nature, feedbacks are typically restricted to between 0 and 100% of this value” is a very strong claim, and without empirical support. Nonlinear systems are actually well known to go in the opposite direction from the initial forcing. This is important.

Second, the empirical data (UAH) strongly suggests that the real sensitivity is zero. This makes a theoretical starting point irrelevant, or more correctly, disconfirmed or falsified as a conjecture.

lolwot, you write “That’s the whole point of the term. That’s why it’s called the “NO feedback climate sensitivity”, because it contains NONE of the feedbacks you mention”

Lolwot, Thanks for this. I have only just found it. This is getting down to the nitty gritty. The no-feedback climate sensitivity estimation is based on the assumption that “the structure of the atmosphere does not change”. You have not addressed this assumption, and so far as I have been able to ascertain, this assumprtion has never been validated. And this is the issue.

The other ways in which energy is transmitted through the atmosphere are not feedbacks. I agree I should not have mentioned clouds. That was wrong. But conduction, convection and the latent heat of water are not feedbacks. Yes, the change in radiative forcing of around 4 Wm-2 must be addressed, but when you only consider how much of a change in surface temperature it takes to redress this imbalance, looking only at radiation, the change in temperature is large. If you consider that this imbalance can be met by changing the way the other three mechanisms operate, then the change in surface temperature is small. That is the issue. Does the lapse rate change when the imbalance is corrected? If the answer to that question is yes, then the no-feedback climate sensitivity of around 1 C for a doubling of CO2 is nonsense.

What is the basis for the assumption that we only need to look at radiation in estimating no-feedback climate sensitivity?

What would George Bush say? What would Al Gore say? Is there anyone Left that does not understand that global warming is nothing but a hoax and a scare tactic? That’s it’s more social than science? That the EU is not going to be around to bail US out of our economic mess? That socialism has been tried and socialism failed? That there is no such thing as a free lunch?

“Yet our campuses are home today to a toxic confluence of fashionable ideas that undermine the very notion of intellectual virtue, and to flawed educational practices and procedures that give intellectual vice ample room to flourish.”

Tom,
Thanks for linking to that report. Just finished reading it. From my interactions with younger people over the past few decades I surmised higher education has been becoming less rigorous and more political. It’s good to see validation of my surmise. Unfortunately, I’m left shaking my head in disgust to read the extent to which the state of the education system has fallen. It’s worse than I thought.

Nothing will change for the better from the inside. So long as the leaders of the dropout factories that comprise the public school system are in power the future of America’s youth is being sacrificed on the altar of liberal Utopianism. Today’s schoolteachers obviously are indifferent to the existence of truth. What Western schoolteachers have achieved is a dread of reality and feel compelled to cause pain and injury. Disbelieving of nature the schoolteachers here have now come to fear it

“It is unlikely that governments will pass necessary regulation to force the markets to allocate more money into climate-friendly solutions, and (we) must not assume that markets will work for the benefit of humankind,” said Jorgen Randers, author of the report and professor of climate strategy at the Norwegian School of Management.”

Judith: I don’t understand this fascination with what sociologists, philosophers and other outsiders think about scientific controversies. Did Schneider get it right when he said: “we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but — which means that we must include all the doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands, and buts”? Or does Pielke Jr. get it right by creating a distinction between misrepresentation and fraud, implying that one is compatible with scientific ethics and one is not? Most of the world doesn’t practice scientific ethics; misrepresentation is a standard tactic in politics and the courtroom.

Why is this about the failure of institutions? How do you personally feel about politicized science: Do you want the students you mentor (or your children) to practice politicized science? Do you like what has happened to your profession? Do you want a future where only one of our political parties is unwilling to trust scientists because some branches of science adopt the ethical standards of politics rather than science?

It’s not what sociologists, philosophers and other outsiders think about scientific controversies that is important here. Global warming is not a problem but fear of it is. AGW is a symptom of a far greater problem: the Fall of Western civilization. Alarmists’ fears say more about our society than they do about Earth’s climate.

The most amazing ignorance has been among smart people in the physical sciences who failed to appreciate the non-science implications of the global warming hoax and who lacked the courage and intellectual integrity to step up. That is why the most interest in global warming mass mania at this stage of the now exposed hoax is among smart people in the areas of psychology, philosophy and education.

California, for example, is going Greek. With the Leftists’ pogrom against capitalism and the liberal corruption of the culture, cities across America have been driven to the brink of bankruptcy. Much like GM was driven into debt by the unions, more and more resources are being diverted from the productive to fuel a bigger and bigger secular, socialist Big Government and the doomsday-dropout factories of the Education Industrial Complex. They have done more than any other institution to foster the climate porn industry and the reason why is simple: the Left demands power over the futures of the productive. That’s what communism is all about and the global warming hoax is simply a tactic that the Left is using to achieve their Marxist Utopia.

“That’s what communism is all about and the global warming hoax is simply a tactic that the Left is using to achieve their Marxist Utopia.”

As a skeptic I’ve never been approached by the fossil fuel industry to write AGW-hostile blog comments, despite the fact that many warmists are passionately convinced that even rank and file skeptical commenters are paid big oil shills. Just take a visit to Revkin’s blog if you doubt that.. And as a lifelong progressive Democrat, I’ve never been contacted about where the global warming hoax perpetrators’ meetings are being held. Nor have I been let in on any of their plans to sneak a “Marxist Utopia” in through the back door.

Wag, you’re obviously quite an intelligent guy which only goes to prove once again that smarts and common sense are not always the same thing.

In an earlier post on this most enlightening topic of Climategate, I commented something to the effect that:

There were three obvious conclusions that could be drawn from Climategate.
1. All of your emails can be stolen and posted online without anyone ever going to jail.
2. The news media (especially Foxnews) are totally gullible and will believe anything to be a conspiracy.
3. Climate scientists are not particularly skilled in dealing with fools and idiots, or people whom they perceive to be fools and idiots.

My earlier perceptions still appear to be on target. Although, given the apparently pervasive culture of hacking by Murdoch newspaper types, currently under investigation in Britain, one cannot help but wonder if some of them, or their associates, might also have been involved in the CRU e-mail hack – after all, Foxnews did generate a lot of mileage and publicity on this topic.

To be sure, Climategate has been a godsend to the climate denier types, and it has kept them barking up the wrong tree ever since.

I have noticed remarkable little impact of Climategate on actual climate research. Perhaps people are being a bit more careful about including snide remarks in their e-mails, lest they surface in public and cause unnecessary embarrassment. The real problem of global warming due to increasing atmospheric CO2 continues unabated. All this has long-term consequences that need to be addressed before dangerous climate change takes place.

If the denizens here were really interested in the global climate, and how it is changing, they should be spending their time studying the basic physics of the greenhouse effect and how increasing CO2 causes global warming. Just listening to each other serves only to magnify their current ignorance.

Of course you must have some inside information because no one else knows whether those emails were hacked or leaked. Meanwhile, shall we put you in the “Gleick is a hero” column? He’s actually admitted to being a thief. Should he go to jail?

‘I have noticed remarkable little impact of Climategate on actual climate research. Perhaps people are being a bit more careful about including snide remarks in their e-mails, lest they surface in public and cause unnecessary embarrassment’

Oh dear.

According to a senior climatologits, ‘Climate research’ still goes along on its own sweet way. Unchanged and unconcerned by having its sleazy inner workings exposed to public gaze and ridicule, they will just carry on as if nothing has happened. Fiddling the data (and concealing it), screwing the publication system and stacking the deck with biddable placeholders. Fighting to win against the hrodes of ‘deniers’ (did I forget well-funded and organised?), and few scruples about how they do it.

Just normal ‘ethical’ behaviour for normal climatologists whose only real USP is the phrase ‘Trust Us, We’re Climate Scientists’. For a bunch of people who trade on trust they certainly seem to want to stretch the definition of trustworthiness to the limit.

So Fox News is gullible, but The Guardian, the NYT, DeSmogBlog, etc are not? Todate, the source of the CRU emails is not known, nor how they came into posession of those emails. If you know as fact the emails were stolen, shouldn’t you be reporting that information to the authorities? And would they not be acting on it. That they could be stolen is not the same as saying they were stolen. Since i know you really are not an idiot and quite smart, I have to wonder why you are purposefully trying to push an unproven position as fact.

As for climate scientists not being good at dealing with fools, perhaps you should practice dealing with Dr Mann. Every time he opens his mouth he seems to prove that being a fool is no hinderance to getting a PhD.

‘I have to wonder why you are purposefully trying to push an unproven position as fact’

May I point out that he is a climate modeller and therefore has form in this area. I imagine that he’s getting tolerably good at ‘pushing an unproven position as fact’ by now. He’s had plenty of practice at it in climate modelling.

I try not to assume the worse about people. I wanted to give Dr Lacis the opportunity to more accurately express his position. It is possible that in his circles he has repeatedly heard the Climate Gate emails referred to as hacked or stolen. Hopefully by pointing out the difference between an opinion with no factual basis and a factual statement, he will reconsider how he refers to the topic in the future.

I won’t be holding my breath. I don’t expect him to. But it is the polite thing to do.

timg56,
You are confusing education with wisdom. Remember that for far too many academics, the old joke about knowing more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing is far too true.

I think guys like Lacis just enjoy dropping little idiot bombs to get us all stirred up. But as I said re lolwot, these guys do us a service. When I started to get interested in AGw 4 or 5 years ago I was almost immediately repelled by the warmists just from a stylistic standpoint. It was evident that they weren’t arguing in good faith. Lacis just said some pretty indefensible things, but he doesn’t care. He just needed to say them. It’s what they do. Say stupid crap.

Ol’ Andy sure left us with a choice little comment–I mean, like, I guess “the Team” must really be feeling the heat and all. And, at the same time, the “big-guns” must also be mighty dissatisfied with the milquetoast, booger-muffin performance of their second-string, hack tag-team currently assigned the “Climate, etc.” troll duties (you know, with its doofus, wannabe gunslingers like that zit-pak, vat-boy Michael-guy who wandered in from Deltoid-land).

I mean why else would one of the greenshirts’ leading hombre, bad-mother, alpha regulators–“Big Andy”, himself–saddle-up and gallop in here on a horse so high the altitude would cause a normal person’s nose to bleed, to give us tacky, denier trash a big, fat, butt-kicking reprimand?

And one must admit, Andy sure trotted out all the good stuff:

“climate deniers types”, of course. And in further reference to us contemptible “deniers” we get some real down-and-dirty, near-miss noogies like “fools and idiots”, “totally gullible”, “will believe anything”, “barking up wrong trees”, and “their current ignorance”. Good stuff, Andy!

But the best part of Andy’s comment was his grudging, obviously-embarrassed, “aw shucks, ma’am, ‘twer’nt nothin’!”, charmingly modest estimate of his own prescient insights : “My earlier perceptions [“obvious conclusions”, Andy calls ’em] still appear to be on target.” You, know, Andy, you’re just too good to be true. In fact, you’re the best!

And then, Andy, having ripped us “deniers” a “new one” and before any of us pitiful Republican-brain, anti-science, flat-earthers can offer even a peep of protest, turns and spurs his mighty steed (oddly named “Delinquent Teenager”] and the last we see of ol’ Andy is a cloud of dust and a horse’s ass–but, then, that last, curiously enough, is the sight we see whether Andy is coming or going.

“I have noticed remarkable little impact of Climategate on actual climate research. Perhaps people are being a bit more careful about including snide remarks in their e-mails, lest they surface in public and cause unnecessary embarrassment.”

—–
There has also some movement to open up data to more public accessibility, which I think is for the better. But in the big picture of course “Climategate” alters the science not one iota. No major changes in any of the historic temperature charts and no big revelations. The Earth system continues to gain energy, skeptics continue to equate the planet’s temperature with the troposphere, etc. and we are headed for a much warmer future.

R. Gates,
Aothough you are wrong in your premise- the catastrophists are rapidly losing their credibility as the lack of evidence becomes unignorable- I would suggest that the dismissiveness and dissembling Lacis is taking will look even less credible when we finally get to see Mann’s e-mails and the third tranche of climategate. I would also observe that the leaker who controls the code to release the third tranche is very in tune with and unhappy about the arrogance of the ‘team’, and that Lacis-esque idiot bombs do not reduce the leaker’s feelings about the team and their behaviors and attitude.

As I said– this all changes the science not one bit. The external forcing from anthropogenic greenhouse gases does not take a pause to consider the politics or airing of dirty laundry. Nothing revealed in Climategate has affected the fact that we are well into the Anthropocene and probably need to get serious about how we are going to manage this planet we are changing so dramatically.

The nothing that changes is people making unsupportable claims that they know with a high degree of certainty what will happen as a by product of more CO2. We also know people make up silly new terms (anthropocene) to spread propaganda

“We also know people make up silly new terms (anthropocene) to spread propaganda.”
____
It’s call the Advancement of Science my friend. Those silly “propaganda” words the have been added in the last hundred years like quarks, quasars, superconductivity, graphene, neutron, etc. Such propaganda!
That you can’t deal with the highly useful and descriptive term like Anthropocene displays your own bias, not any attempt at propaganda by those who created this word and those who use it everyday. Humans are the #1 agent of change on the planet. Welcome to the Anthropocene…no propaganda required.

10 ways that humans have altered the planet earth and brought about the Anthropocene:

1. Largest and fastest increase in greenhouse gas concentration in at least 15 million years leading to an imbalance in Earth’s energy system.
2. The acidification of the oceans
3. Warming of the oceans
4. Soil erosion from agricultural practices and other land uses
5. Alteration of the carbon cycle
6. Alteration of the nitrogen cycle
7. Disruption of the ocean food chain (through chemical pollution, over fishing, waste, plastic contamination, etc.)
8. Net decline in the total global cryosphere (brought about through anthropogenic warming as well as the introduction of anthropogenic black carbon into the environment)
9. Alteration of the lithosphere through mining and other land and mineral uses
10. Alteration of th biosphere through ecosystem alteration, species selection practices, pollution (chemical, radiological, etc.)

Hopefully you are right (about opening up the process and letting the light of day shine in). Because we are all better served that way.

Imagine this – the climate scientists end up being right on a large number of positions, but they have been tuned out because of how they have acted. Will it be the fault of the skeptics or the scientists?

@Gates
skeptics continue to equate the planet’s temperature with the troposphere

You allude I take it to the warming of the oceans. While not denying the importance of that, the flat temperature of the troposphere means the cause of ocean warming must be something other than what is happening in the the troposphere. Only if the troposphere was warming, could it be having a warming effect on the oceans.
By extension then, only if rising CO2 levels were driving up air temperatures, could rising CO2 be driving up ocean temperatures. We must thus look elsewhere for the causes of the warmer oceans.

‘Only if the troposphere was warming, could it be having a warming effect on the oceans.

This may not be strictly true in circumstances where the ocean surface cools – as it does from upwelling cold water in a few places around the planet notably in the eastern Pacific. In this case the net IR up decreases and the ocean warms while the atmosphere cools. Although the root cause here must be cooler sea surface temperature. Cool sea surfaces are also associated with less low level marine stratocumulous cloud cover. This both warms the troposphere and cools the ocean. So it is perhaps true to say that there should have been a warming atmosphere – all other things being equal – but what happened last decade is not that at all in the data. It was effectively masked by natural variability.

There is a climate signal and an anthropogenic signal and the 2 can’t be reliably disentangled.

Messages like this give the impression that the future of scientific ethics is in great trouble. It seems as if Andy Lacis has no idea that comments like “people are being a bit more careful about including snide remarks in their e-mails” will only work with groups who have not read the Climategate E-mails. But hey, some continue to push the meme that Climategate was about embarrassing snide remarks in private E-mails made public to embarrass climate scientists. Thankfully others (as shown in the top post) are considering the larger ethical issues.

Having read all the climategate emails, having read almost all of the science at play in the matter. I remain convinced that part of the problem is that many people, like you, have lost the case by overcharging the case. From the start until today there were two camps. Both wrong.

On one side the camp that screamed fraud, and hoax, and evil doers.
On the other side the camp that mumbled “nothing here to see”, boys behaving badly, lets move on.

My position, Judith’s position, is that there are institutional problems that allow for and help create the conditions for personal mis conduct.

No, that is NOT Judith’s position. Her position is that this was just “blundering self-interest”. How on earth is “blundering self-interest” an “institutional problem”?

So tell me, Steven, how it helps for Judith to a) claim ignorance of climategate, and at the same time b) claim that all that was revealed was “blundering self-protection”?

Look, in any other part of society, when someone transgresses they suffer some kind of consequences. That is an integral part of discouraging people from gaming the system. You can change the institution all you want, but people will always try to game any system. To stop them, there have to be consequences.

You are claiming that in science, that is un-necessary, that somehow magically if we change “the institution” that the problem will go away … but if so, why don’t we do that in all parts of society? According to you, we shouldn’t punish criminals, because it is an “institutional problem”.

What I am saying is, sure, address the institutional problem, but that will never, ever be enough … which is why we make kids go sit in the corner and adults go sit in jail. Without consequences for the scofflaws, there will never be an end to them.

You say “there are institutional problems that allow for and help create the conditions for personal mis conduct” … but what you don’t seem to notice is that one of those problems is that the personal misconductees suffer absolutely no loss of anything for their misconduct, which guarantees that it will continue. And when I point to that, when I advocate the very mildest of consequences, censure by the person’s peers, you say oh, no, I should focus on the institutional problems …

But let’s play it your way. You say:

Pounding the table and railing against mann and jones is DIVERSION from improving the science. It keeps us from fighting for institutional changes.

So … what is the “institutional change” you are fighting for, and where can I see an example of you fighting for it? What “institution” is it that needs to change? Because to me, the claim that you can’t bring justice to the miscreants because you are fighting to change the institution seems like an excuse. It may not be one, but I don’t even see the “institution” you are talking about.

“No, that is NOT Judith’s position. Her position is that this was just “blundering self-interest”. How on earth is “blundering self-interest” an “institutional problem”?”

Sorry willis, you havent read everything Judith has to say on this issue and youfrankly dont know her or her position very well.

“So tell me, Steven, how it helps for Judith to a) claim ignorance of climategate, and at the same time b) claim that all that was revealed was “blundering self-protection”?”

In the first place that is not all she has claimed. In the second place it helps by setting an example to others that until they have studied the matter fully ( on both sides ) they had best be circumspect in what they argue. You will note that both Steve McIntyre and I who have studied the matter in great detail, hesitate to make the kind of sweeping statements that you make.

“Look, in any other part of society, when someone transgresses they suffer some kind of consequences. That is an integral part of discouraging people from gaming the system. ”

On the contrary. I note the opposite. In many areas of business, government, the law, science, and making blog comments, people are rarely held to account.

“You can change the institution all you want, but people will always try to game any system. To stop them, there have to be consequences.”

Sorry. I don’t buy it. There are plenty of consequences and people still transgress. Did the threat of plagarism stop Wegman’s student?
Not really.

“You are claiming that in science, that is un-necessary, that somehow magically if we change “the institution” that the problem will go away … ”

Really. Where did I claim that the problem would magically go away.
Let me use a willis tactic. quote me!! dammit, where did I say that!
you get rorally bent out of shape when people mis characterize what you say. The problem will not go away. It won’t go away because humans are human. You cannot get rid of the problem by burning your witches. The best you can do is prevent as much of the problem as possible. You think, with no evidence whatsoever, that punishing a few scientists will change the situation. It wont. never has, never will.

“but if so, why don’t we do that in all parts of society? According to you, we shouldn’t punish criminals, because it is an “institutional problem”.”

Where did I say that? WIllis. please quote me. where exactly did I say that?

“What I am saying is, sure, address the institutional problem, but that will never, ever be enough … which is why we make kids go sit in the corner and adults go sit in jail. Without consequences for the scofflaws, there will never be an end to them.”

Again, you and others like you have retarded the effort to get needed changes. by focusing on the personal, you give the other side an easy out. By charging Jones with Fraud, you divert attention from the real problems.

“You say “there are institutional problems that allow for and help create the conditions for personal mis conduct” … but what you don’t seem to notice is that one of those problems is that the personal misconductees suffer absolutely no loss of anything for their misconduct, which guarantees that it will continue. And when I point to that, when I advocate the very mildest of consequences, censure by the person’s peers, you say oh, no, I should focus on the institutional problems …”

Let me ask you. In his SPPI writings, Joe DeAlo made false claims about NOAA. Would you censor him ? And I don’t overlook that one of the institutional problems is a lax enforcement policy. read what Steve Mcintyre wrote. Here is what I note. You have a choice. You can choose to run around and demand that everyone “censor” Jones or Mann.
Aint gunna happen. Or you can work to raise the level of standards and practices where you can. For example, you could refuse to write for any blog or journal that refuses to post code and data for all articles.
That would be using your power wisely. Instead, you whine about Judith.

But let’s play it your way. You say:

Pounding the table and railing against mann and jones is DIVERSION from improving the science. It keeps us from fighting for institutional changes.

So … what is the “institutional change” you are fighting for, and where can I see an example of you fighting for it? What “institution” is it that needs to change? Because to me, the claim that you can’t bring justice to the miscreants because you are fighting to change the institution seems like an excuse. It may not be one, but I don’t even see the “institution” you are talking about.

w.

Institutional changes? that’s easy willis. At its heart climategate starts in the refusal of researchers across a variety of institutions to share their code and data. Lets just start there. The institutions are governments who fund, universities who employ, institutions who employ, journals and blogs that publish. hiding declines, mikes nature trick, un archived data.
Work to get that changed. And work doesnt mean blather on about it.
You are resting on your 2007 laurals. When was the last time you fought to get some stuff freed? When was the last time you showed others how to share openly by creating tools for them. talk is cheap.

Steven, the depth of the misunderstanding between you and I seems wide at the moment. You seem to think I’m saying that all we need is to punish the individuals. I don’t think that at all. Actually, I agree with you that we need a variety of institutional changes. However, we seem to differ on what is an “institutional change”. For example, among your examples of “institutional changes” above you list “mike’s nature trick”. I see that as something Mann did personally, not to do with any institution, and something that would not be caught by any of the institutional changes you recommend.

That is why I say that while we need institutional changes, they are far from enough—there also needs to be consequences to whoever does it for that kind of action. In business, in law, in all fields the institutions have rules, that is obviously vital.

But if someone couldn’t be fired for breaking the rules of the business they work for, people would show up late and leave early all the time. It is only when you have both institutional rules and punishments for breaking them that the system works. That’s why we have both traffic laws and traffic cops … both parts are necessary for success. That’s why businesses have rules that you have to show up on time, and fire people who constantly show up late … both parts are necessary for success. That’s why lawyers have Bar Association rules governing their conduct, and they can lose their law license if they break those rules … both parts are necessary.

Finally, you say I am “resting on my 2007 laurals [sic]” and ask when I last fought to get some stuff freed. I’m not sure why you have chosen to focus on that particular part of the larger fight for transparency and honesty and self-policing in science. Freeing the data and code is only a small part of what is necessary, and in fact much of that battle seems to be won. In addition I do what I can to set an example in my own work of providing data and code. What more do you want?

Regarding the larger issues and not just that smaller question of data and code, I have written at length to promote and encourage transparency and honesty and self-policing in climate science. You say I should “work” to achieve that, and “work doesn’t mean blather on about it” … just exactly what “work” is it that you think I should do to encourage scientific honesty? I write about it, I speak about it, I put what force and pressure I can muster into pushing for it, and I have a day job as well … what more would you suggest I do? I’m a carpenter fighting for scientific honesty in whatever way I can think of, but somehow that’s not good enough for you.

In any case, you ask what I have done. Inter alia, In 2010 I wrote an open letter to Subra Suresh, the incoming head of the NSF, to encourage him to enforce their rules about archiving of data. Last year I wrote an open letter to Bruce Alberts, the Editor of Science magazine, to support and encourage him in his decision to require data archiving. I wrote an open letter to Google discussing the problems with their institutional actions. In other words, I am actively working and have been for a while on the question of the kinds of institutional reforms you are talking about. I’m doing the best I can in that regard, and your belittling me for that is a joke. Where are your open letters pushing for institutional reform, where is your public support for Science’s new policy on data archiving? I’m walking the walk as best I know how, Steven, and if that’s not good enough for you, well, I’m sorry to hear that, but I don’t know what to say or do differently.

What Judith does is talk about transparency and honesty, and you seem to approve of that. Perhaps you could extend the same courtesy to me.

Come on Willis. Mosher just let Mann and Jones know that he is willing to work with them. Why haven’t you done that? Think of all that the four of you could accomplish together. Ask Steven if he has heard from them yet.

Steven
Re: “Did the threat of plagarism stop Wegman’s student?”
The grad student was a foreign national who probably did not know of the ultra sensitive academic/climate science reaction to plagarism from using some boiler plate text (minor to the major position).

on what factual basis do you argue that he probably did not know?
I know of no graduate program in the united states that does not have a policy. I know of no program that does not have an student orientation program. I know of no program that does not instruct all students in this
matter. You are just making things up to suit your argument. You have no evidence to base your statement on and all the evidence we do have points to the contrary. My point would be this. personally, I would not have found it to be a case of plagarism. on technical grounds it was. I would not hang him out to dry. WIllis’, approach, would be to use him to make a lesson for others. Consequences. Me, I’d focus on what the university and his director as institutions could do differently in the future.

The point is this. The “crimes” committed in climategate are minor. The solution is not vigalente justice. That is what Willis wants.

Jones was investigated. The investigation was botched. but it cleared him.
Willis wants Judith and others to take justice into their own hands and
“shun” or censor the man. Surely that leads to more personalization of science, not less. Jones was tried. He was aquitted. The judges were bozos. TOUGH LUCK. what can you do? well the most productive thing is to work on the system. NOT to call for individuals to take matters into their own hands. That’s chaos.

Scientists who lie and slander are not fit to be respected. Scientists who lie and slander other scientists and their work are not fit to be included in the company of other scientists. Scientists who commit fraud or refuse to be accountable when the possibility of fraud arises with their work, should not have their work accorded any respect.

This is a simple matter of credibility and trust. When people demomstrate that they are unworthy of trust, we should not treat them as trustworthy. It is a simple as the statement that Muller made about the hockey team. “I now have a list of people whose papers I won’t even read anymore.”

Let’s say I start attacking Michael Mann. What will that accomplish, other than to have him sue me? Mann has just won another big award. People disagree as to whether Mann is a hero or a criminal. For the sake of argument, lets say there are 5 bad actors in all this. If we get rid of them, do the problems go away? No, because the problems are institutional. As I said, pointless.

That is as nonsensical as saying we shouldn’t punish people when they commit crimes, because the problems are institutional and punishing people doesn’t make the problems go away.

Yes, the problems that lead to crime are certainly institutional in part, but that doesn’t stop us from bringing consequences to those who break the rules.

In other words, you pitch this as an “either-or” situation, either change the institution or bring consequences to those who flout the rules, when it is nothing of the sort. Nothing prevents from doing both, and indeed, we need to do both.

People will always try to game the system. No matter how cleverly you design the “institution”, they will figure out some way around it. There is no institutional design that will not have that problem. So in virtually every institution I know of, there are penalties for breaking the rules.

The problem is, if there are absolutely no personal consequences for breaking the rules, the miscreants will be greatly encouraged, and the rule-breaking will increase without end.

So sure, redesign the “institution”, Judith, but that’s only half the job. The other part is to make it personally costly to get caught gaming the system.

Finally, please understand my objection here. I spelled it out in the comment you are responding to, but I guess you didn’t see it.

You are making two claims. One is that you have neither the time nor the interest to find out the facts about climategate. Now, that’s quite depressing to me, but it certainly is your right to not investigate massive corruption in your own chosen field.

The other position you are taking is that “Ravetz statement pretty much summarizes the CRU emails IMO: ‘blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)’”.

You can’t have it both way, Judith. You can’t claim you don’t have the facts, and also say you know enough to summarize the emails.

I cannot tell you what that might accomplish, that would be speculation.

However, I can tell you what it will accomplish if climate scientists do nothing about Michael Mann and his ilk, if they continue to say that climategate was just boys being boys, that it was just self-preservation … it will destroy the public trust in climate science.

You are correct that the issue is not whether the problem will go away if we censure or “get rid of” the bad actors.

The issue is that if we don’t do that, we forfeit the trust of the people. Doing that won’t solve the problem, you are 100% correct about that … but what it will do is prevent the huge collateral damage that comes from seeing scientist lie, cheat and steal without a peep from the AGW establishment …

Judith, Willis is absolutely correct. This cancer of CAGW is going to go on growing and getting worse, until someone of your stature takes a stand. For people like myself, quite rightly, no-one takes any notice of us. But you could solve this problem singlehandedly.

First, I can assure you that it is useless being rude to me; I have a hide like a rhinoceros, so any insults run like water off a duck’s back. In my career, many very bright people have been rude to me, including an 1851 scholar, so I am not worried.

You are, of course, wrong. It did not take me 10 years to work out that no-feed back means there are no feedbacks. What took me 10 years to work out was that the weakest link, or, more precisley, the completely missing link, in the chain that claims to show there is science to support CAGW, is the no-feedback climate sensitivity.

I notice, no-one, and I mean no-one, has challenged my statement that there is no proper science that allows anyone to estimate a change in surface temperature from a change in forcing. That is the issue that I feel really matters.

Willis, I have to agree with Judy. She is not the local DA nor does she hold some position of authority that would cause people at NASA or some other University to respond to any complaint she would make. While it would perhaps make you feel good if she became even more of a voice in the wilderness, doing so would not be likely to make any significant change occur in the people and institutions at fault.

One has many points in life where one makes decisions about where one’s limited supply of time and energy should be spent. Her comment that attacking individuals and/or institutions from her position in her University would be “pointless” is accurate.

My personal guess is that the perpetrators will never apologize, get prosecuted, lose their jobs or anything similar. They will just slowly pirouette into getting grants to study the climate as it gets colder, and the younger ones will probably be able to repeat the process in a few decades when it shifts to warmer again.

Some can follow M. Tobis down the sustainability foxhole and worry about phosphorous or running out of trace elements or some similar reason to get grants and pursue research. Publish or perish drives the lives of Professors at Universities. Government scientists will go on studying whatever the current Government will pay them to do so they can keep their pay privileges.

The work that you and Steve and Anthony have done and continue doing has some prospect of bringing historical discredit to the perpetrators, and that is probably the justice they will receive. Their names will be like those who fostered earlier scientific hoaxes and scams, and their descendents will not be proud of their ancestors. A change of Government in the UK or the US could conceivably bring actual investigations and prosecutions for contract fraud, but chances of anyone wanting to expend the time and political capital to do that are slim. The rest of the tenured lot would rise up in arms and defend to the death.

Why don’t we look at the choke points in the information flow that caused the train wreck.

The first one was the failure of Phil Jones back in 1990 to verify the station histories used in China. That was not an institutional failure. It was not fraud. It was, if anything, poor judgement on the part of Wei-Chyung Wang who thought he/she had a good enough understanding of the station histories to vouch for them. Nature didn’t catch them on it.

I’ll bet money that all of them were acting in good faith. Jones, Wei-Chyung Wang and Nature. And I’ll bet money that existing protocols could have caught it–but is Nature going to call out the head of the CRU?

The real problem is what didn’t happen when Jones learned of the issue. He didn’t shine a spotlight on it. And that’s because of the political agenda driving the IPCC report.

We’re always going on about how horrible it is for scientists to get involved in politics. I think that’s insane. As long as they self-declare and say now I’m a scientist, and now I’m an advocate, have at it.

What we have to stop is politics getting into science.

We could go through each of the links in the chain that led to climategate and say exactly the same thing. Because it’s the same problem. Political pressure to get the right story out (plus a healthy dose of self interest in the fame and glory of spearheading a popular crusade) explains all of the events leading up to and following Climategate by the Hockey Team.

Maybe this has been discussed elsewhere but it seems as if ClimateGate marked the end of the age of “Scientist as Expert” or to put it better, ClimateGate marked the beginning of the rise of Non-Scientist as Expert.

In many of the ClimateGate emails we see climate scientists asking, “Who are these guys?” as mining engineers, aeronautical engineers, economists and statisticians step into their realm, demand to see their data and question their conclusions.

What is happening to scientists is reminiscent of what happened to teachers in the 19th century. It used to be that educators were the smartest people in most small towns. They could read, they could write, they knew mathematics and they had been to college.

A hundred years later, the status (and pay) of teachers plummeted as more and more people went to college and acquired technical skills that surpassed the knowledge base of most teachers. It is not unusual to have many people, even small towns, who have greater sophistication in mathematics than the High School math teacher.

Much the same things is happening to scientists whose research relies on technical skills like statistics, computer programming, process engineering or chemical engineering (to name a few) that they themselves are not expert in.

It must be a shock to spend a lifetime acquiring specialized knowledge then be handed your lunch by a guy from another field who, for instance, knows trees or statistics better than you do.

It is certainly true of the lack of basic IT skills demonstrated and discussed in ‘Harry _Read_Me’. Anybody who has ever worked in a serious data centre – even in the most lowly capacity – could do a far better job of looking after the CRU’s data than the incompetents who do so at the moment. They appear to have precisely no professional IT discipline or processes, nor even the consciousness that such things exist elsewhere and might be lacking in their toyshop.

I don’t have the expertise to make my own judgement about their competence in other professional fields. But I doubt that they are shining lights in any of them.

It is absolutely pathetic that such second-raters were allowed for so long to assert that they deserved our trust because they were ‘climate scientists’.

Of course, a large component of being smart is knowing what you don’t know. As a generalist policy adviser for many years across a bunch of fields I was not (and could never be) an expert in, I soon learned to find people I could trust who were experts and consult them before I opened my big mouth. Far from diminishing my status, it made me look better and saved me from many a howler. And sharing the credit with reputable experts never did my stocks any harm – on the contrary, people were happy to collaborate if they knew they would be recognised, which actually improved my reputation for producing a good outcome.

As others have pointed out, the DIY mentality was nowhere more evident than at UEA, where their IT systems were a joke, their user skills patchy at best, and yet a lot of the output relied on precisely those things. Then we have the dendochronologists who considered it beneath them to talk to biologists, and modellers who regard stats experts as a lower form of life.

This kind of arrogance was perhaps acceptable in the days of the lone investigator pursuing a theory in the lab or the library. But for scientific fields at least, it just doesn’t work any more.

lolwot, if it floats your boat to defend CRU’s work practices with this specious remark, fine. But as a person with practically zero technical IT expertise, I have managed complex databases, and would be thoroughly ashamed and embarrassed if anything I was responsible for was run the way their outfit was.

I take no credit for the fact that my projects were technically up to scratch – that belongs to the people who did the work. But I take full responsibility as the manager who had to sign off on the output for ensuring that the right protocols and procedures were in place, and that they were followed. My stuff was politically sensitive, but it didn’t purport to tell the world about the climate.

If the CRU output happened to be correct (and I’m not having that debate with you), then it was a triumph of good luck over bad management. I certainly wouldn’t trust them to do the numbers for engineering a plane or a bridge.

Right… A land-only temperature series confirms a global temperature series…

So they must have been doing something right. You don’t arrive at the right answer like that by luck.

If by “right answer,” you mean some incredibly vague thing like, “The planet has warmed,” you’re wrong. That’s easy to get by luck. If you mean something like, an actual, specified amount of warming, then your comparison makes no sense. BEST is quite different from HADCRUT (slightly less for v4 than v3 due to questionable adjustments). That is expected due to the difference in how oceans warm compared to land, but it does make it impossible for one to confirm the other.

Johanna, one big problem that I see is that scientists never made the jump from investigation of esoteric and inconsequential science to investigation and finding of fact in a policy issue of huge socioeconomic importance. The seat-of-the pants (as you say “DYI”) approach is appropriate for study of the mating habits of the ding beetle. It’s completely inappropriate for finding of fact that leads in to major national and international policy ventures.

Rather than accept the new responsibility that comes along with the new importance, they dig in and insist that the way they’ve always done things is good enough.

“But perhaps, Dr. T. [Trenberth], perhaps you have found some such climate anomaly which cannot be explained as natural variation and you just haven’t made it public yet.” ~Willis Eschenbach, ‘Unequivocal Equivocation – an open letter to Dr. Trenberth’ (Do you truly think that after Climategate, and after the revelations of things like IPCC citations of WWF propaganda pieces as if they were solid science, and after Pachauri’s ludicrous claim that it was “voodoo science” to point out the Himalayan glacier errors, after all that do you think anyone with half a brain still believes the IPCC is some neutral arbiter of climate science whose ex-cathedra pronouncements can be relied upon?)

Let’s say I start attacking Michael Mann. What will that accomplish, other than to have him sue me?”

Getting him to sue you, might be a very good thing.
Or a very bad idea for Mann to do this.
But to ask you to attack Mann is sort of like having Hansen
getting arrested as protester.
It’s suggesting what Hansen does is correct. And it’s not,
Jim Hansen should have been fired.
Fired not for being on the wrong side of an issue but it’s not proper for him to become involved in politics and holding a position as NASA director.
What Hansen should do if he wants to be involved politically is resign from his job. It’s a conflict of interests, how can Hansen do his job as director?
He can’t.
So, I don’t encourage Judy to more than her job and her job has certain boundaries.
Respecting these boundaries, is not something “liberals” do- they instead think a heroic to be so dedicated to a political cause. It’s Jesus telling the fisherman to join him, but liberals want this plus the fisherman to remain fishing.
But it’s worst if the fisherman is being teacher or a director, because now dragging in everyone involved, the students, the scientists, into your cause- you forcing them to join your cause.
And that isn’t bug, but feature for the liberal/socialist/fanatic.
I think if Judy forces her associative to chose, they have a right oppose to her- and this can take many forms [shunning her could be one].
One can choose to be advocate of something, but one choose not to be advocate- let other do the advocating [they could be better at it and you have things you want to do.] .
It’s false to think that being a advocate of something is more moral, than choosing for whatever reasons to not be advocate.
Though I will grant that at some point in time or unique circumstances, it could the time where all should join the revolution.

Jim, this is pretty naive in my opinion. The second Judith starts calling Mann and JOnes crooks is the same second she ceases to be the only skeptical voice the MSM calls for quotes. No, they don’t do so regularly, and so far I don’t think it’s been the NYT’s, but she really is one of the only non warmists out there who gets a modicum of respect from that side.

In any case, no one individual can make this go away, with the exception of a few people like Mann himself. It has to be from the inside. Way, way inside, And we all know that’s not going to happen.

– Agenda-driven hype masquerading as science
– The “bad apples” responsible for this
– The corrupt IPCC “consensus process” which is the root cause
– And finally the IPCC itself, to be replaced by a much smaller panel of truly objective climate scientists with no political agenda

do you guys really think the science doesn’t show AGW?

The “science” doesn’t “show” anything, lolwot (i.e. there is no empirical scientific evidence of AGW), but the GH theory itself is valid and some warming may have occurred as a result of human GHG emissions. But the IPCC “leap of faith” to a potentially catastrophic AGW has no sound scientific basis – simply model projections and hype.

Steve Zwick is a believer. Keep in mind that believers may be willing to say and do anything for the cause. Peter Gleick obviously did. The folks who strap on explosive vests do as well. When dealing with a believer one should always maintain a certain degree of skepticism.

Oh great! “A powerful convergence of interests. Scientists seeking grant money, media seeking headlines, universities seeking huge grants from major institutions, foundations, environmental groups, politicians wanting to make it look like they are saving future generations. And all of these people have converged on this issue.” ~Peter Moore (“There are many thousands of scientists’ who reject man-made global warming fears…It’s all based on computer models and predictions. We do not actually have a crystal ball, it is a mythical object.”)

Once more real skeptics don’t need a “boost” for they neutral in the AGW issue. They have no emotional attachment to the outcome other the a revelation of truth and the physical connections that drive climate. The bottom line for real skeptics is: I don’t care about where it leads but show me the data!”

So this kind of “need a boost” statement.comes not from a real skeptic, but a fake skeptic…aka denier.

Following the evidence is much more interesting than having a pre conceived idea of what you want, then shaping the data to fit it. I was quite surprised at the temperatures that I found in two separate periods when writing ‘The long slow thaw.’ I’m currently looking at some 14th century weather diaries and trying to verify them against other data as again they do not fit the historic story.

However, if you are a ‘climate advocate’ I suspect you will try to fashion all data into the suit you have started making. I would say we have half a dozen or more influential ‘tailors out there.
tonyb

Of course it’s easier to be arrogantly dismissive than to engage reasonably on such issues as who these 3 individuals are, and thus why their apostasy is noteworthy. Or how about discussing the factors that lead to their change of heart?

IN what way have you advanced the discussion? Do you have any real notion as to what that discussion might even be?

…is he too dumb to see the End is Nigh? “Throughout history, many competing cults have attempted to predict dire catastrophes for the Earth. With respect to these cults, the key psychological and sociological question is: ‘What happens when the predictions fail? ~Philip Stott

The global warmng alarmists took public money and then violated the public trust and breached every covenant of good faith. They have broken every ethical code, abandoned every aspect of morality and sacrificed the principles of objectivity and the scientific method for 30 pieces of silver and their delusional dreams of liberal Utopianism. Fortunately, George Bush was strong-willed enough to stand up the Leftist consensus and hopefully bought us all enough time for reason to emerge and shine a light on the deception.

I did not believe it in 2009, but Climategate emails and documents and the responses of world leaders and leaders of the scientific community were a blessing in disguise,

They exposed decades of misinformation in government science since 6 Aug 1945 when world leaders were frighted by “nuclear fires” consuming Hiroshima and reacted out of fear to:

a.) Unite Nations
b.) Control Humans as domesticated animals, and
c.) Hide Information on energy that creates elements, sustains and destroys life.

It appears that Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives and Liberals, Communists and Capitalists alike have all participated in this futile effort to control reality in order to save themselves and the world.

How come arguments so shockingly poor, worse than greenhouse effect denial IMHO, is a) written by Bastardi in the first place who is not exactly new to this subject, b) published at WUWT and c) is lauded by the commenters. Streams of them claiming it’s brilliant stuff.

That’s three waves of “review” that have missed the blatant crud.

What am I expected to believe? That all the years of this subject and all the eyes and they still don’t even grasp basic fundamentals of the subject? I mean do they literally learn nothing? Is there literally zero progress on this matter? And they are pushing this publicly as a challenge to be debated?

Can Bastardi really claim with a straight face that:
“”Add to that the fact that in that mixture, air, [CO2] occupies .004 and according to DOE, mans total contribution is 3 to 5 %, meaning using the high end 5% we have contributed .0002 to a mixture that has 1/1000th of the heat capacity of a prime source of the number one greenhouse gas , water vapor, that is 400 times the amount of co2.””

It’s so bad that the errors stack up. The 0.0002 figure is wrong in TWO ways. Errors upon errors. If they can’t even grasp the fundamentals and can’t even spot the errors all over Bastardi’s piece then what use are they on any subject of climate? How can they get anything right if they can’t even get this stuff right after so many years?

It’s like teaching math to a class for 10 years and then they start arguing that 2+2=5. WTF is going on.

Look at the solar/temperature/co2 comparison graphs Bastardi provides. Is this the kind of shining example of “science” skeptics want the IPCC to perform? He first compares global temperature to CO2, but then – for some reason – switches to comparing solar to *US Temperature*. Is it a coincidence that if he had shown global temperature vs solar it would have diverged after 1950 (hmm that sounds familiar)? Is that why he used US temperature?

In any case, are these three waves of “reviewers” so ignorant that they don’t know that sunspots/TSI diverged from global temperature in recent decades? Am I really meant to believe that?

It’s a simple fact. It’s a basic piece of knowledge about climate. How can they have gone so many years and NOT know it? Everyone should know that Sunspots do not increase in the last 50 years when global temperature does. FUNDAMENTAL. And if they DO know it why are they trying to push opposite claims with tricks like comparing solar to the US rather than the globe?

Can someone here explain it?

You might say it’s just blogs but I am in fact taking that into account. I know the post isn’t a detailed paper, but it is pushed as a letter signed by someone and it has been hosted on WUWT, which signals that it was “good enough”, so the contents do fall well below the threshold of what is acceptable, by any standard remotely possible. The level of “scholarship” and knowledge displayed by those climate skeptics is so downright foul that it appears utterly hypocritical for them to even dare criticize anyone else’s science. Aren’t they more guilty themselves of everything they accuse scientists of?

You keep talking about simple physics. Yes, GHG theory is based on simple, fundemental physics. But it doesn’t stop there. To understand climate, whether on a global or regional scale, you need to know about a great deal of physical processes and interactions, across the entire scale of space and time they occur in. As I understand it, that is the primary purpose of models – to help us understand and explore what is going on. This is not simple, nor is it well understood. If it were, they would not have to make all sorts of assumptiomns or input certain parameters into the models.

I can only speak for myself, but I tend to put more faith in a person who first tells me what he doesn’t know than try to convince me of everythiing he does know.

Joe Bastardi simply should stick to his weather forecasts. Meteorologists make bad climatologists and visa versa. Joe is especially bad at talking about the climate though, not just because he is a Meteorologist and sees everything in cycles (and clearly AGW is not part of a cycle), but because he also seems to desperately want AGW to be proven as false, and this gives him even more of a handicap.

Certainly I’m not dismissing the value of understanding cycles. For example, knowing that SST’s and the ENSO cycle can predict tropospheric temperatures is very useful for both weather and climate studies. The danger is when Meteorologists try to extrapolate shorter term weather cycles into longer term climate changes. ENSO, the PDO, the AMO, etc. all would show up as the most tiniest bit of noise riding on top of Milankovitich cycles, barely even registering at all. Long term forcings on climate and short-term natural variability and cycles are hugely different than long-term external forcings. Each requires a specialist to fully understand the nuances. Bastardi would do well to go back to school and learn a bit more if he wants to mouth off about climate, just as Hansen would probably do well do keep his mouth shut about weather.

Willis,
climate scientists – – even Judy – don’t know the Climategate documents and backstory the way that we do, having lived through the pre-Climategate events in real time. Nor do I think that it’s unreasonable for third party scientists to rely on properly constituted inquiries.

I hold the “inquiries” primarily responsible for the unsatisfactory present situation. The Muir Russell and Oxburgh panels, for example, should have included a senior credentialed person who was familiar with the criticisms of CRU e.g. someone like Hu McCulloch or Roman Mureika. Handing it over to Geoffrey Boulton without any balance was a recipe for failure.

The failure of the investigations to create proper transcripts or to provide an opportunity to rebut evidence was a disgrace. Thus, some flagrantly untrue findings of fact.

While these dissembling “investigations” satisfied credulous climate “community”, they obviously did nothing to resolve questions or issues among critics – even questions that had a chance of being resolved. To a surprising extent, this unease seems to have permeated to the wider public, which now discounts claims even from uninvolved climate scientists. They are frustrated by this, but the problem arose by not demanding proper inquiries in the first place.

Thanks, Steve. I can only agree. The inquiries were a joke, and most climate scientists said nothing either before or after about that obvious problem. Now, as you say, “this unease seems to have permeated to the wider public”.

However, please note why I entered this thread. It was not because Judith was withholding judgement on Climategate. It was not because I would like her to take a stronger stand on the question (although obviously, I would like that). But that wasn’t the reason.

It was because she was taking a stand, but unfortunately what she was saying was that what Climategate revealed was “‘blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)’”.

Now, Climategate revealed a lot of things. But to characterize what it revealed in that way is simply untrue. Judith has said more than once that she doesn’t have time to dig through the nonsense and find out the facts. And that’s fine, everyone has to put their time where they feel it is the most valuable.

But you don’t get to have it both ways. After saying that, it’s not right for her to go on to make sweeping generalizations about what Climategate revealed.

Willis, JC has already made the following statement. Is it not enough?

Losing the Public’s Trust
Climategate has now become broadened in scope to extend beyond the CRU emails to include glaciergate and a host of other issues associated with the IPCC. In responding to climategate, the climate research establishment has appealed to its own authority and failed to understand that climategate is primarily a crisis of trust. Finally, we have an editorial published in Science on February 10 from Ralph Cicerone, President of the National Academy of Science, that begins to articulate the trust issue: “This view reflects the fragile nature of trust between science and society, demonstrating that the perceived misbehavior of even a few scientists can diminish the credibility of science as a whole. What needs to be done? Two aspects need urgent attention: the general practice of science and the personal behaviors of scientists.” While I applaud loudly Dr. Cicerone’s statement, I wish it had been made earlier and had not been isolated from the public by publishing the statement behind paywall at Science. Unfortunately, the void of substantive statements from our institutions has been filled in ways that have made the situation much worse.

Credibility is a combination of expertise and trust. While scientists persist in thinking that they should be trusted because of their expertise, climategate has made it clear that expertise itself is not a sufficient basis for public trust. The fallout from climategate is much broader than the allegations of misconduct by scientists at two universities. Of greatest importance is the reduced credibility of the IPCC assessment reports, which are providing the scientific basis for international policies on climate change. Recent disclosures about the IPCC have brought up a host of concerns about the IPCC that had been festering in the background: involvement of IPCC scientists in explicit climate policy advocacy; tribalism that excluded skeptics; hubris of scientists with regards to a noble (Nobel) cause; alarmism; and inadequate attention to the statistics of uncertainty and the complexity of alternative interpretations.

The scientists involved in the CRU emails and the IPCC have been defended as scientists with the best of intentions trying to do their work in a very difficult environment. They blame the alleged hacking incident on the “climate denial machine.” They are described as fighting a valiant war to keep misinformation from the public that is being pushed by skeptics with links to the oil industry. They are focused on moving the science forward, rather than the janitorial work of record keeping, data archival, etc. They have had to adopt unconventional strategies to fight off what they thought was malicious interference. They defend their science based upon their years of experience and their expertise.

Scientists are claiming that the scientific content of the IPCC reports is not compromised by climategate. The jury is still out on the specific fallout from climategate in terms of the historical and paleo temperature records. There are larger concerns (raised by glaciergate, etc.) particularly with regards to the IPCC Assessment Report on Impacts (Working Group II): has a combination of groupthink, political advocacy and a noble cause syndrome stifled scientific debate, slowed down scientific progress and corrupted the assessment process? If institutions are doing their jobs, then misconduct by a few individual scientists should be quickly identified, and the impacts of the misconduct should be confined and quickly rectified. Institutions need to look in the mirror and ask the question as to how they enabled this situation and what opportunities they missed to forestall such substantial loss of public trust in climate research and the major assessment reports.

In their misguided war against the skeptics, the CRU emails reveal that core research values became compromised. Much has been said about the role of the highly politicized environment in providing an extremely difficult environment in which to conduct science that produces a lot of stress for the scientists. There is no question that this environment is not conducive to science and scientists need more support from their institutions in dealing with it. However, there is nothing in this crazy environment that is worth sacrificing your personal or professional integrity. And when your science receives this kind of attention, it means that the science is really important to the public. Therefore scientists need to do everything possible to make sure that they effectively communicate uncertainty, risk, probability and complexity, and provide a context that includes alternative and competing scientific viewpoints. This is an important responsibility that individual scientists and particularly the institutions need to take very seriously.

Both individual scientists and the institutions need to look in the mirror and really understand how this happened. Climategate isn’t going to go away until these issues are resolved. Science is ultimately a self-correcting process, but with a major international treaty and far-reaching domestic legislation on the table, the stakes couldn’t be higher.

1. “The climate research establishment has appealed to its own authority and failed to understand that climategate is primarily a crisis of trust.”

2. “CRU emails reveal that core research values became compromised.”

3. “Climategate isn’t going to go away until these issues are resolved.”

Climategate documents and lock-step responses of world leaders and organizations like UN’s IPCC, US National Academy of Sciences, UK’s Royal Society, the Nobel Prize Committee, Proceedings of the National Academy and the Royal Society, AGU, ACS, APS, Nature, Science, etc. ad infinitum, and especially the feverish response of Dr. Peter Gleick

Exposed 64 years of misuse of government science to promote favorite models of reality instead of using reality to test scientific models, from the time Hiroshima was destroyed in August 1945 until Climategate documents and emails were released in November 2009

Willis, JC has already made the following statement. Is it not enough? …

Girma, is my writing really that opaque? I am not concerned about what Judith didn’t say, as you seem to think.

I am concerned about what she did say. Or as I put it, immediately above your reply:

However, please note why I entered this thread. It was not because Judith was withholding judgement on Climategate. It was not because I would like her to take a stronger stand on the question (although obviously, I would like that). But that wasn’t the reason.

It was because she was taking a stand, but unfortunately what she was saying was that what Climategate revealed was “‘blundering self-protection (plus agenda-driven hype)’”.

Now, Climategate revealed a lot of things. But to characterize what it revealed in that way is simply untrue. Judith has said more than once that she doesn’t have time to dig through the nonsense and find out the facts. And that’s fine, everyone has to put their time where they feel it is the most valuable.

But you don’t get to have it both ways. After saying that, it’s not right for her to go on to make sweeping generalizations about what Climategate revealed.

What part of that isn’t clear? My concern is that her statement trivializes the whole incident, when in fact it was and remains a watershed in the history of climate science.

I greatly appreciate her previous statement, the one you quoted. Which is why it’s disturbing that now she has changed her tune and wants to make out like it was nothing, just some people “blundering”. It wasn’t blundering, it was deliberate malfeasance.

That is great. That is here considered statement. I think you expect people to be much more consistent and always precise. You always amaze me how deeper you dig. Things I have not noticed, you bring them to the surface. I agree you are with a very high IQ. Please concentrate on the main prize of IPCC’s statements that are not supported by the data. Don’t concentrate on individuals. Concentrate on the AGW theory. Thanks for your precise articles with nice figures.

I actually agree with you to some extent on Bastardi. He’s a brilliant long range forecaster, but a bit of a loose cannon otherwise. The underlying science of AGw is plausible enough, and arguing otherwise won’t get you very far.

The discussion is, or should be anyway, that the real word data is not cooperating. When a hypothesis shows itself to have poor predictive powers, the hypothesis should be thrown out. That’s how science is supposed to work.

I agree with you about Joe Bastardi. Excellent at long-range weather, poor at many things related to climate. He should stick to his cycles of weather, or take a course or two or ten about external forcings of climate and attributions.

In regard to the the theory of AGW, it is not the theory itself that is the problem for certainly, as has been pointed out many times, the majority of honest skeptics aren’t really skeptical about the basic fact that increasing greenhouse gases will cause the planet to warm. It is all a matter of degree and overall sensitivity. How much, how fast, etc…

What really needs to be refined constantly and the old ones thus thrown out constantly are the global climate models, and like all good tools, they are constantly being refined. Models are always wrong. Always. By wrong we mean incomplete in their replication of what is actually happening with the climate system. They are maps…not the territory, and thus these maps are constantly being updated and improved. Trenberth says as much and all those who deal with models on a professional level say as much and know as much. Models are always wrong (as in incomplete), but some can be useful and give you insights into the climate system that can’t be gained any other way.

R and Poker,
I agree with both of you, especially concerning the degree and sensitivity. My biggest issue with the models is that they are not modified to fit the data, but rather some modify the data to fit the models. We should be moving forward with every piece of new data, not digging in our heels to defend our theories.

Fortunately, we are “moving forward with every new piece of data”. The climate models are constantly being updated, just as any tool or map should be, every time some quantifiable new piece of the puzzle has been discovered. Some very interesting new areas right now that are being readied for or already being added to the next round of climate models include effects of UV on stratospheric circulation and more details on the effects of aerosols on ocean circulation.

I find the link between stratospheric ozone and climate to be most interesting, and worthy of much further study. The link between solar UV levels reaching Earth and stratospheric ozone and regional climate is now quantifiable enough to begin to be included in some global climate models, which goes to show you how the models are constantly being improved. Thanks for the heads up on this article…hard to keep up sometimes!

I think they need to be a bit more loud in stating this. I hear what you say in this comment and my reaction is to catagorize you as an honest participant. The willingness to acknowledge up front that you may be wrong, at least some of the time or on some of the particular issues, gives me reason to believe that you are not going to try to fool me or are agenda driven.

I’ve been studying climate and the issue of anthropogenic climate change for a very long time, and of course am quite out front with my “warmist” leanings, but ultimately I care very much about the science and really understanding the dynamics of this amazing planet. I also believe that the vast majority of climate scientists feel as I do– they really want to understand the dynamics of climate. They have dedicated their lives to this and are quite passionate about it. But this passion, mixed with very strong egos, can also at times, be their undoing. The bottom line for me, I want to understand and know the truth, but would not want to go to my grave thinking I’d be fooled by fools, and I certainly would never want to be accused of trying to fool anyone. The data and the studies are there for all to see and the body of proof of AGW are growing daily. To a very high degree of certainty, we say that human activity is warming Earth’s non-tectonic energy system and has been for many decades. I welcome any data (in fact, seek it out) that proves otherwise. Pictures of submarines coming up in Arctic polyna or cherry picked short-term tropospheric temperatures don’t qualify…

Re pictures of submarines – I kinda like these, but I’m a former submariner. I don’t consider them as proof on anything other than submarines being about the coolest (maybe I should say neatest instead), type of vessel ever built. Do you know that all ships can be placed into two catagories? Submarines and targets.

Certainty where it isn’t warranted. On all sides, the certainty that the inquiries — all eight– got everything they did, or almost all, or everything that mattered, or most of what went on, wrong or right is misplaced. Inquiries are limited functions, with specific tasks and authority; they are not run by omniscient mind-reading entities of godlike wisdom. If well-run, and by and large by the standard of tribunal processes all eight were pretty exemplary, the inquiries can answer at most a handful of questions wrong. These questions are bounded by the nature of what can be objectively settled by the process of hearing witnesses and reviewing evidence. Just because an inquiry makes a finding does not mean that finding is one of ultimate truth, but only of objective fact bounded by pragmatic considerations. Just because an inquiry refused to pursue some party’s unrealistic demands does not mean the inquiry is the source of bias in a matter. Just because an inquiry comes down with a finding you dispute does not make the inquiry wrong: by and large, it’s a good indication that you are wrong, and at the very least a better indication than self-assessment.

Doubt, where it isn’t necessary. Who stole the files, and why, and why did they release them in the manner they did, and what have they held back, and why? Don’t get all bent out of shape about the verb ‘stole’. Even the media call it theft when they’re caught stealing data from its authors to put to a use the authors did not intend. Get over it.

Doubt where it ought be. If you never doubted the certainty, the provenance, the reliability of claims in reports before Climategate, and now you sometimes do, then at least that’s something. Took you long enough. Almost every uncertainty, error, or deviation in the reports ‘discovered’ by Climategate, however, were patently in the original published documents if one but read them skeptically and observantly. Now, if you can manage to muster that doubt evenhandedly for everything you read, hear, see, believe, think you remember, say, write or think, and can follow up that doubt with reasonable tests to validate and verify yourself and others, then you’re getting someplace.

Deeper divisions where before there were only fissures and incipient faultlines. Anyone can pick a fight. Anyone can fight. It’s working with, getting along with, elevating the discourse together with all the resources and gifts of people you suspect and even despise that makes you worth anything. If Rick Santorum can endorse Mitt Romney after the brutal character assassinations they’ve so lately performed on one another (or if your tastes run to Hilary and Barack), then there’s no excuse for any American to do less. Of course, if you’re British or Australian, I can’t really think of an example that applies; you can feel free to continue tearing each other down.

Waste. A great deal of it. People so tail-chasingly obsessed with the spiral of recrimination, petty blame, pointless ranting until reminded of the imagined (or semi-real) wrongs they’ve suffered that they must seek recrimination, petty bla… Look, reconcile, already. It’s past time.

Bart,
my grandfather ran some major inquiries in Canada and one of my best friends has been counsel to two leading Canadian inquiries. I’ve seen how properly constituted inquiries work.

Successful inquiries will generally try to ensure that the participation of all interested parties. People accept an adverse decision much more readily if the process was not loaded.

these inquiries were not “pretty exemplary” and this has nothing to do with the outcome. (And, unlike many commenters, I think that there were plausible outcomes that did not involve drawing and quartering Jones, Mann etc.) For example, the UK Parliament urged Muir Russell to have open questions and transcripts. That would have helped. Muir Russell disregarded that. There was only actual interview with Jones and Briffa on proxies (april 9) and only 2 of 5 MR panelists attended (Muir Russell himself did not.) They did not interview CRU scientists separately. Neither Osborn or Hulme was even questioned. Most of Muir Russell’s interview were with administrators who had nothing to do with Climategate. Muir Russell avoided asking Jones about deleting emails because that would have been asking him about an offence.

The Penn State inquiry committee totally breached the mandate of an inquiry committee, pre-empting an investigation, but without interviewing or taking submissions from critics. Their “experts” were Donald Kennedy and Gerry North, the latter had refused to read the emails out of “professional courtesy”.

One can go and on.

I think that the inquiries made matters worse. Not because of the outcomes. I can picture circumstances where adverse interpretations were placed on events, when there were plausible explanations. That’s not what happened here.

Yes. One side refuses to listen to reason on the science. The other side refuses to listen to reason about proper inquiries.
Williard. you know of course that a proper inquiry could have solved the who dunnit. All the evidence is right there. For those who know how to fish it out.

One side listens to reason on the science of the radiative effect, but not on the science of feedbacks and model uncertainty and not on the policy about proper inquiries. The other side listens to reason on science and on policy.

lolwot,
Lets get real. The sole purpose of the people at sks is to refute arguments that do not agree with their own beliefs. This is not science. Realclimate is is much better when it comes to science, but still engages in censoring that which contradicts their beliefs. They also encourage verbal attacks on those who dare to contradict them.

“The sole purpose of the people at sks is to refute arguments that do not agree with their own beliefs. This is not science.”

Sks presents the science far more accurately than skeptic blogs. Skeptic blogs tend to either focus on irrelevant trivialities that cover up an inconvenient big picture, or they throw out logical fallacies to advance absurd arguments.

It’s the skeptic blogs that do the bulk of the misleading, as they tend to pretend that cosmic rays are proven to cause climate change, that they may explain all the recent warming (without mentioning the trend problem), that they are being “ignored” in climate models. A whole host of false arguments.

To back this up further I would point at instances like that recent post at WUWT where Bastardi trots out a graph comparing solar activity and US temperatures as evidence for a solar correlation with global temperature and even appeals to the “law of small numbers” fallacy as an argument for why CO2 can’t have any significant effect.

Such logical fallacies and errors barely (never say never) happen on Sks, but they are rampant at places like WUWT. Plus at WUWT a lot of the commenters will clap along to the errors.

To quote me, “These questions are bounded by the nature of what can be objectively settled by the process of hearing witnesses and reviewing evidence.”

If the terms of an inquiry do not extend to looking into offenses, then that’s a straightjacket the inquiry panel wears. Canada has been host to probably more inquiries per capita than any other country on the planet. I’ve looked at the records of more than a few, and I have to say, compared to the UK, the Canadian system is abysmally pointless, bloated and ineffectual. I don’t think your Canadian friend in leading inquiries there makes a very authoritative expert in British and US hearings.. is he licensed to practice in either jurisdiction? However, as a friend commiserating with your hurt feelings, I’m quite certain he will find it much easier to agree with you in private where it is of no consequence, and even raise for you these, let’s face it, rather bootless procedural complaints, than to tell you what I say here: it’s done. Let it go.

There were, after all, substantial victories for you in Muir Russell, if I recall correctly. Serious findings of wrongdoing with regards FOI, dressings down about conduct and attitude, and a long list of recommendations largely in accord with many of Climateaudit’s routine points of discussion, and beyond.

Certainly, after the first three or four inquiries, and the rehashing of the inquiries that were and that might have been, do make matters worse.

That argument was weak, even for you Bart. I’m sure the fact that Steve is Canadian makes him unable to comprehend the nature of an effective inquiry. Either you are drunk or you need to take up the bottle. Fairness is something just about everyone, excepting you, understands.

You don’t go to Australia if you want a precision engineered high performance .. well, anything. You don’t go to London for a decent hamburger. You don’t go to Canada for a fair inquiry.

Google phrases like “Pickton Inquiry Head Takes Role in Serial-Killer Movie” or just “Picton Inquiry Boycott”, or “Bernardo Investigation Review”, or “Westray Inquiry” or “Canada Streamlines Environmental Review”.

While I’m sure Mr. McIntyre feels hard done by, since he says so, I can’t see any rational foundation in what he’s said to merit the shrillness of his distress, so as I know he’s a rational man, I must conclude one of: he’s putting on a show out of proportion to his actual sense of wrong, or he’s got a fantastical narcissistic streak that can only be assuaged by everything going his way always in every minor detail down to the last decimal point (as sometimes happens with accountants), or he’s from a culture with no more real sense of fairness or understanding of tribunal justice than the Belgians have of how to make a decent action movie.

Bart, again, that is a very lame argument. Anyone who takes a serious look at the various inquiries can see they are nothing more than whitewash. To allege that one must be of a particular national origin is ridiculous. You are doing yourself a disservice here.

You don’t know McIntyre’s colleague nor his qualifications, yet you make a sweeping generalisation about Canadian vs UK and US enquiries. Your judgement, based on anecdotal evidence, is irrelevant when speaking about specific enquiries.

You do not know Mr McIntyre well enough to address him by his first name, yet you call him your friend.

Hurt feelings? Another absurdity.

It has been pointed out by many that the areas covered, and makeup of the panel and the failure to comply with common sense let alone high standards in its procedures were hallmarks of all the enquiries. Instead of trying to rectify these gross errors, your prescription is: there has been a great deal of blah-blah-blah so let’s not got there anymore and someone who tries to get to the truth has merely a litigious attitude.

If you have evidence that the enquiries were not flawed in these fundamental ways then by all means present it.

You don’t go to Australia if you want a precision engineered high performance .. well, anything. You don’t go to London for a decent hamburger. You don’t go to Canada for a fair inquiry.
—————————————————–
Bart, this trolling ain’t gonna work here. The mask slips once again, no?

Veiled attacks on Steve McIntyre say a lot more about you than they do about him.

We ought to calibrate what you mean by ‘lame’, ‘weak’, ‘good’ and ‘strong’ arguments. Mr. McIntyre uses http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority based on a grandfather and a friend who may well be authorities, but without citations we can’t know what they really think; all we know is what the well-known-to-be deeply embroiled Mr. McIntyre himself believes in his sore-winning way to claim http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman no ‘true’ inquiry would have gone the way ALL EIGHT did. To read what he’s written, one would have a hard time recognizing that he’s come away from these inquiries with the lion’s share of the prizes.

So please, jim2, explain what it makes an argument weak or lame. So far as I can observe, the only thing all arguments you label such have in common is that you don’t agree with their conclusion.

coniston | May 9, 2012 at 12:48 pm |

What I know or not about Mr. McIntyre is really neither here nor there, and of his friends and family at law even less so; it is no mere anecdote to relate that Canada has many inquiries, or that the wide perception in Canada is that there are too many, and they achieve less than no good overall. I proffered not anecdotes but examples. You seem confused about the distinction. Further, I’m trying to find where I referred to Mr. McIntyre as my friend or foe at all; it seems unlike me, though I did refer to him having a friend, since he mentioned one. I’m unsurprised at this, he’s widely reported to be a very amicable person among his other many virtues. While many people have repeated often the same complaints about the inquiries, the moaning and groaning bear little semblence to what actually happened when one reads the proceedings.

johanna | May 9, 2012 at 8:25 pm |

I read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attorney_General_of_Virginia's_climate_science_investigation and I can’t dispute that the sheer wackiness of both the US and UK governments being led around by the nose by some foreigner forcing the virtual shutdown of research institutions and the throwing of hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in bureaucratic shennanigans makes me quite irate. I’m not apportioning blame all to one person or one side; clearly there’s plenty going on from each party that antagonizes the other party. That’s entirely commonplace. There’s no mask; there’s no veil; they’re all dragging everyone around them down with them so long as they continue. I’m not hiding what I’m saying, though characterizing merely telling it like it is hardly qualifies as much of an attack considering the vituperation and nastiness that’s gone before. Mr. McIntyre, nice guy though he is, appears to have some condition of extreme priviledge to believe until he has dragged every name he’s ever felt wronged by through the mud at great cost to taxpayers in countries he has no real connection to, he won’t be satisfied. This bloodymindedness is costly, pointless and incomprehensible in any other sense than a temper tantrum.

If there were really a point to be made, it would’ve been cheaper and faster to have just set up his own climate research unit in Toronto and reproduced the Hadley work with his own corrections. Plus, nobody on the ‘other side’ would’ve gotten so much notoriety they could write book after book bemoaning how persecuted they are. That’d have to be considered a bonus. Plus, it’d have moved the science forward.

Who knows? Perhaps seeing a rival research unit doing things better, threatening to take the grant money from them by merit, would’ve driven Hadley to improve their work.

By the way, pipeline right of ways generally deliver about 5 W/m^2/day or much less over their lifetime; solar 150 W/m^2/day or more. Anywhere that doesn’t have extensive sunk cost in grided infrastructure, solar would be cheaper than fossil to develop new, and would produce two orders of magnitude more power.

Girma, I am not Willis, but I need some feedback from you on a layman’s concern regarding quantifying the null hypothesis of natural variability.
I have attempted the following:

What does the null hypothesis mean quantitatively? Looking at HADCRUT3 since 1860, we find 60-yr. cycles where GMT rises at a rate of 0.1C/decade for at least 3 decades in each instance. These cycles are overlaid on a longer-term rise of 0.4C/century since the Little Ice Age. The cycles appear before there is any proposed attribution to CO2 effect.

Thus the record shows that a sustained increase in GMT of 0.14C/decade is normal and natural. Add 0.01C/decade for the uncertainty of a chaotic system, and we can propose a threshold of 0.15C/decade. If there is a persistent increase in GMT over that amount, then we can say that natural variability has been exceeded by an unnatural forcing.

Two notes:
1) It is clear that ENSO oscillations can produce rises above the threshold over a 1-3 year period, often resulting in a step-change followed by a GMT plateau. Thus the rise must persist for 5-10 years to be considered abnormal.
2) I see that HADCRU are making “adjustments” to the record, and they are systematically reducing older temperatures, and increasing more recent ones. If they cause either the 60-yr. or longer-term trends to increase, the threshold will have to also increase accordingly.

For this, IPCC received a noble prize. World academy of sciences and prestigious scientific journals support this position.

If you look the global mean temperature (GMT) anomaly relative the climate pattern of the smoothed GMT, the anomaly only oscillates and its current value is zero as it is on the the smoothed GMT curve. The GMT anomaly does not always increase as shown by GISS and CRU. It only oscillates. It is wrong to refer GMTs relative a horizontal line of “base period 1961-90”

We are told we are going to see a warming by 0.2 deg C per decade. I claim no warming or a slight cooling in the next two decades. As 100% of the observed data lie within the GMT band for the last 100 years (http://bit.ly/HRvReF), statistically it is correct to say the observed data will also lie within the extrapolated band at least for the next two decades. Note that the residual GMT that oscillates with in the GMT band is approximated by a normal distribution with a mean of zero and standard deviation of about 0.1 deg C. For a normal distribution, about 95% of the data lie within the +/- 2*sigma range of the GMT band as shown in the graph.

Prediction is fraught with difficulty, which is why statistically, most will fail. What is the sense of using 100 years of data when we have millions of years of evidence? If you really want to know, try using stock market data or exchange rate data, but instead of using everything, use a selected smaller time series and see how good you can predict what comes next from what has been before.

As far as I can figure, the best option is to choose a straight line regression through all available data. Anything else and you are kidding yourself. You might be lucky for a time and do better than average, but not in the long run.

Chief Hydrologist, 9/5 @4.33am:
‘There seems to be a lot of bird poetry happening, I wonder what it means.’
I dunno what it means.
I dunno what anything means,,,I jest surmise. )
Do you like this?

‘I leant upon a coppice gate
When frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires….

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast be-ruffled plume.h=
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.’

Tess ought to be required reading for high schoolers. Ever notice how women make for better tragic figures than men? Is there a more compelling tragic character in all of literature than Emma Bovary? I’m in the process of rereading Sister Carrie at the moment, one of my all time favorites. Unusual tastes for a 60 year old guy perhaps. A cheap way to fall in love I suppose…

I live fairly close to Hardy’s haunts. I find some of his work very difficult reading as plot and characters become more confused and darker. Undoubtedly Tess is great as are many of the poems but on the whole I prefer Dickens works.
tonyb

tonyb,
I suppose that’s right with respect to Hardy’s writing, though his style has never bothered me. Now Dreiser can be awkward and in some sense difficult (as per Sister Carrie), but he’s not nearly the craftsman that Hardy is in my opinion. I love Dickens too, though he too has his dry moments. For example, have you made it all the way through Bleak House?

Willis @ 8/5 1.12pm:
Willis, I see it differently to you. There’s direct action and indirect action. What is Judith doing when she provides an uncensored forum and posts a thread on Climategate? This is not a passive or unpolitical act and she reaps the wind by doing so. And I expect she gets it from both sides.

Regarding the lengthy discussion above about how many skeptics believe what, it is an empirical(demographic) question that has not been studied, to my knowledge. It should be. The range of opinions is pretty clear, from the extreme of questioning the GH effect to the lukewarmers who merely doubt the catastrophic predictions. What all have in common is either doubting or rejecting CAGW. This is the only policy relevant scientific issue.

Fear of future climate rubs all of our collective noses in societies’ lack of will to discriminate between good and bad of today. It deprives us of the opportunity to reward excellence and personal achievement and draw a praiseworthy distinction between honor-earned through personal dedication and sacrifice versus a future-denied resulting from self-destruction and self-defeating nihilism.

Climategate exposed64 years of misuse of government science to promote favorite models of reality instead of using reality to test scientific models, from the time Hiroshima was destroyed in August 1945 until Climategate documents and emails were released in November 2009.

Along the way, NASA was caught on CSPAN news in 1998 releasing data from the 1995 probe of Jupiter that confirmed the Sun’s iron-rich interior and cost the American public over $1,000,000,000 on the Galileo Mission:

As a UK taxpayer, I see the legacy of the whole climategate witch hunt as being one that has hit my pocket personally. Who has funded the enquiries both by the police and by those investigating the UAE? Certainly not the Canadian, Australian and American blog hosts and posters who are the most vocal in their calling for further action.

So some scientists were mean and tried (and failed) to repress the views of those they disagreed with. Has that changed the science? Has the world been ‘saved’ by the actions of these activist/skeptic bloggers and commenters? Has it heck. We keep producing more CO2 and the earth continues to warm yet I am needlessly out of pocket and action to deal with the whole AGW problem has been delayed.

Louise, Why are you so mad at the Heartland Institute? Did they end up with all the weather records that were collected and then dumped by Mr. Phil Jones? That collection was priceless. I can see why you as a UK taxpayer are so angry. The Tea-Party feels just like you do. Keep your chin up.

Louise, you go on about how much ‘climategate’ has cost you, yet you are strangely quiet on the fact that fuel has doubled in price over the last decade, electricity has more than doubled in price, and the cost of just about everything else – food included – has increased very significantly as a result. And that’s just the beginning – we’re set to see very much greater increases over the near future.
I think you need to develop some sense of proportion.

I should add that if CO2 proves to be a non-problem, there’s going to be hundreds of millions – perhaps billions – of people who are very angry at having being impoverished for no good reason. I certainly would not like to be in the shoes of the likes of Mann and Jones if that does happen.

Who would have guessed that around the turn of the millennium working stiffs in the free enterprise system would be fighting from their homes and businesses for truth, justice, carbon dioxide and the American way against a rapacious Secular, Socialist, Government-Education Industrial Machine?

Tom, thx for the PInk Floyd. The subtle rhythms, the nuanced melodies OMG … i sometimes used to surprise students in the classroom with an impromptu performance of ‘ We don’t need no thought control, …Teacher, leave them kids alone ‘

And here’s today’s :-) ‘Thought for the day:’
“Take no thought for tomorrow, we will take care of it for you.”

While we’re on ‘the Arts,’ Tony and Pokerguy, I recently reread Thomas Hardy’s ‘Far from the Madding Crowd,’ not considered as one of his great novels but it’s strangely appealing, heck, I love it. The protagonists, literary terminology for ‘charactors’ doncha know, Gabriel Oak and the beautiful, headstrong Bathsheba, just come off the page, they speak to me and I speak to them. Then there’s this storm… jest read it. )

I’m into Vol 2 of the Hunger Games – I like a good dystopian post greenhouse apocalyptic story. Vol 1 was compelling in a sparse, modernist, storytelling way. So far from the great stylists who actually had an individual voice and a charm all their own. The author seems more absent from the tale in a way Hardy’s generation never was. Call me old fashioned. Got me thinking about storms in literature. I can think of 20 without really trying.

‘Over the high coast mountains and over the valleys the gray clouds marched in from the ocean. The wind blew fiercely and silently, high in the air, and it swished in the brush, and it roared in the forests. The clouds came in brokenly, in puffs, in folds, in gray crags; and they piled in together and settled low over the west. And then the wind stopped and left the clouds deep and solid. The rain began with gusty showers, pauses and downpours; and then gradually it settled to a single tempo, small drops and a steady beat, rain that was gray to see through, rain that cut midday light to evening. And at first the dry earth sucked the moisture down and blackened. For two days the earth drank the rain, until the earth was full. Then puddles formed, and in the low places little lakes formed in the fields. The muddy lakes rose higher, and the steady rain whipped the shining water. At last the mountains were full, and the hillsides spilled into the streams, built them to freshets, and sent them roaring down the canyons into the valleys.’ Steinbeck – Grapes of Wrath

Not only are “Real” scientits behaving as if they’re true believers in a religion, the religion they’re emulating is a particularly odious and totalitarian one.

To wit LOLWOT’s argument that Jones’ attempts to prevent other scientists from publishing obviously bad work (which just coincidentally conflicted with theirs), is SELFLESS and GOOD, NOT UNETHICAL OR CORRUPT. This is much like an argument a Scientologist makes. His side is good and opponents are bad, by definition.

OK that’s a fair question. Currently the concentration of atmospheric CO2 is 393ppmv and rising by 2-3 ppmv per year. It is generally agreed that this figure will pass 560ppmv, or 2 x pre-industrial levels, by the end of the century unless serious measures are introduced to curb the rise. Then there are other GH gases, like methane, which are also rising and which need to be curbed.

The big question is: ‘Is this safe?’ Well I suppose there is one certain way to find out. Just like there is one certain way to find out if its safe to play Russian roulette. Except that, someone has changed the usual rules. There isn’t just one bullet in the revolver, there are five with just one empty slot.

So if we are going to take a chance, don’t you think it would be a good idea, if at least, the consensus of opinion was that the empty slot was in just the right place?

“There isn’t just one bullet in the revolver, there are five with just one empty slot.”

And the one empty slot is fossil fuel depletion. The consensus moral of the Russian roulette story is that you don’t play Russian roulette. It is a 100% probability with no uncertainty that a sustainable energy route is the only feasible path to follow.

Sorry, it’s been delayed again. The GAO has recently determined that recoverable shale oil in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming is 30-60% of 3 TRILLION barrels. Which is a much as recoverable reserves for the entire rest of the planet currently.

That’s aside from the 300+ yrs of unconventional NG, of course.

So:
There is no peak anything;
CO2 is a valuable resource, which we are recovering from the billions of years of sequestration by flora (and protozoa and corals, etc.);
Methane is a rapid transient, which converts into CO2 and H20, both utterly benign and necessary.

The revolver is actually a cap pistol, a toy making pretend noises for playacting children.